Interview with Chris Whitaker

• UGtastic Archive
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The Interviewer

Mike Hall

Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic

The Guest

Chris Whitaker

Code for America Brigade Captain, Consultant at Smart Chicago Collaborative

The Conversation

Mike Hall Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
Hi, it's Mike again with UGtastic. Today I'm sitting down with Chris Whitaker, who's involved with the Smart Chicago Collaborative, and correct me if I'm wrong, it was the Code for America? Is that correct?
Chris Whitaker Code for America Brigade Captain, Consultant at Smart Chicago Collaborative
Correct. I have a dual role. I'm the local organizer here in Chicago for Code for America, and I'm also a consultant with the Smart Chicago Collaborative, which is a non-profit group here in Chicago.
Mike Hall Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
Yeah, and both of those are involved with a lot of hackfests and contributing open code for people to get that data that's government data and government information. Can you tell a little bit about the hackfests and how Code for America and the Chicago Smart Collaborative are involved in those, and how do you work in those?
Chris Whitaker Code for America Brigade Captain, Consultant at Smart Chicago Collaborative
Sure. Well, the OpenGov hack nights are actually being run by Derek Eder and Juan Velez with Open City. They've been doing these hack nights at a place called 1871, which is a co-working space in Chicago's Merchandise Mart, for about the past year. We have them every Tuesday night at 6 p.m., same place, same time, and that's where a lot of volunteer coders go to work on projects that they want to spend more time on. My role with Smart Chicago Collaborative involves investing in several different apps that we pay people full-time money to help develop. One of these apps is called Foodborne Chicago that searches Twitter for tweets about food poisoning. Once it finds that, it'll tweet back at the author saying, 'Hey, I'm sorry you're sick. Can you give us some more information?' And with that information, we can actually submit a 311 request to the city to send a food inspector to that restaurant. These are real apps that are performing a public service. I'm fortunate to be in Chicago's civic technology scene where we're building both big things like Foodborne and then small things like an app that will tell you when your local police meeting is or how to find your nearest polling place.
Mike Hall Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
Yeah, I think it's really interesting to see. I've spoken with Dan X. O'Neil and Paul Baker about open government, and it's really fascinating to see what's happening here in Chicago around civic hacking. And the hack fest that you were just recently doing, can you tell me a little bit about what those were?
Chris Whitaker Code for America Brigade Captain, Consultant at Smart Chicago Collaborative
Well, this summer we've had a lot of hackathons in Chicago. The Chicago Police Department recently launched an API to help communicate security concerns through a program called CAPS. We had a hackathon at Google to play with that API and see what we could do with it. We recently just finished the National Day of Civic Hacking, where we had three simultaneous events in Chicago: a hackathon focused on immigration in Pilsen, a youth-centered hackathon at Adler Planetarium, and a general hackathon at 1871.
Mike Hall Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
And so how did you get involved with these? Have you been running groups before?
Chris Whitaker Code for America Brigade Captain, Consultant at Smart Chicago Collaborative
I started out in the public sector as a field representative for the Illinois Department of Employment Security. I got hired just as the recession was beginning and the bottom was dropping out; there were lines of people out the door. I show up on my first day ready to help, and I get on my computer and it's a DOS program. It was probably older than I am. I had recently gotten out of college, used computer labs with the latest tech, and I had a smartphone; looking at that DOS prompt, I thought, 'You've got to be kidding me.' So I ran towards the civic technologists as fast as I could. I got an invite to Urban Geek Drinks, which Justin Massa started to pull together people involved in urban policy and technology. Through that, I met Derek Eder, Paul Baker, and Dan O'Neil. When Code for America launched its Brigade program, I proposed a plan on how to expand the universe of civic technology issues, and it went from there.
Mike Hall Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
You used the term 'brigade captain.' What is a brigade captain and how does that work for Code for America?
Chris Whitaker Code for America Brigade Captain, Consultant at Smart Chicago Collaborative
The brigade program started last October and we're now in 34 different cities. It's a national program. In most cities, these are the individuals organizing the very first hackathons, gathering people to use technology to solve civic problems. In Chicago, we're fortunate that we already had a very active group—Joe Germuska and Dan O'Neil started OpenGov Chicago five years ago. So in Chicago, the brigade is more of a support role, and we export the lessons and code bases we've developed to other younger cities.
Mike Hall Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
If I wanted to get involved, for example, I live in Crystal Lake. Is that something I would do for my city or is it really a national focus?
Chris Whitaker Code for America Brigade Captain, Consultant at Smart Chicago Collaborative
Absolutely. You can go to brigade.codeforamerica.org and sign up as a coder or community organizer. They will connect you with a local organizer if one exists, or provide resources to start your own brigade.
Mike Hall Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
And is this something existing user groups could augment?
Chris Whitaker Code for America Brigade Captain, Consultant at Smart Chicago Collaborative
Not at all. Chicago doesn't have a separate Code for America meetup; we've just co-opted the existing weekly hack nights. To borrow an Army term: 'stay in your lane' and don't fix what's not broken. It's a great way to give an existing community more purpose than just pizza and the latest libraries.
Mike Hall Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
Recently there's been talk about the NSA, Snowden, and FISA. Is that something that's been discussed or is it too new?
Chris Whitaker Code for America Brigade Captain, Consultant at Smart Chicago Collaborative
I think the biggest shouts of criticism and concern come from the same group of people involved in civic technology. I think it's a big problem.
Mike Hall Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
Well, thank you very much for taking the time to speak with me. I appreciate the work you're doing.
Chris Whitaker Code for America Brigade Captain, Consultant at Smart Chicago Collaborative
Thank you.

Critical Insights

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"The most effective civic technology often starts by 'co-opting' existing communities rather than building new ones from scratch—the 'stay in your lane' principle applied to community organizing."
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"Civic hacking matures when it moves from volunteer weekend hackathons to professionalized, full-time development of public service apps like Foodborne Chicago."
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"The frustration of interacting with legacy government systems (e.g., DOS programs in the late 2000s) acts as a primary catalyst for skilled technologists to move into the public sector."
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"Established technical hubs like Chicago can serve as 'mentors' to younger civic tech scenes by exporting proven code bases and organizational playbooks."
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"Civic technology communities are naturally aligned with digital privacy and civil liberties concerns, often serving as the most vocal critics of government overreach (e.g., NSA surveillance)."