CfB Hack Night - Emergency Support for Baltimore Seniors

UPDATE
This event has attendance capped because our venue size. We've "sold out" of in-person spots!
1. Want to attend virtually? sign up to the "waiting list" and we will share out a video link day-of
2. Have your plans changed? Please update your RSVP to no so other people can take your spot in person.

The Problem

Remember the E. Coli water contamination last fall??

Older adults in particular had trouble coping with the Emergency Situation. Baltimore City’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM) distributed fresh water and information about boiling water to folks.

Unfortunately OEM doesn’t have great actionable data for where to focus their efforts in situations like this.

How We Can Help

We'll be answering questions for the Baltimore City Office of Emergency Management (OEM), such as:

• Where do seniors live?
• Can we use existing data to prioritize who to reach out to for support?
• How can we measure the effectiveness of the response?
• And more!

How? By using all the open data sets we can find, such as the City’s "Open Data Portal" Open Baltimore, MD state data sets, Google Maps data, 211 (social services), and likely many more we’ve yet to find.

We'll be joined by folks from Baltimore Digital Services and OEM to answer questions and provide subject matter expertise.

Who should attend? What skills do we need at this event in particular?

• Data analysts
• Data visualization / design
• PMs
• PR / Marketing (share our work out, blog / press release etc)
• Anyone else interested in finding a way to help, regardless of your skills — any skill level

Why should I attend?

• Learning - dataset exposure, practice, mentorship
• Career Growth - another project for your resume/interviews
• Impact - Helping the city be more effective at supporting seniors

Would you be open to helping coordinate folks at this particular event?
We could use 2-3 people to help coordinate folks at the event, and maybe talk to stakeholders beforehand. If you’re interested in helping with this, chat with us in Slack in #organizers-and-volunteers

Event Format

• In Person.
• Breaking out into small groups to work together.

Getting There
1. Navigate to Enoch Pratt Free Library (Central) - 400 Cathedral St
* By car: street parking may be available, or try Parkopedia to find a garage
* By public transportation: This library is near the Light Rail and several bus lines. It's also a 20-25min walk from Penn Station.
2. Once inside, we'll be in "Classroom 1801" which is one of the glass-walled ones on the first floor (see event photo). You can ask the front desk for directions.

Disclaimer from the library: "Use of library meeting space does not constitute endorsement of this organization, this program or its content by the Enoch Pratt Free Library."

ABOUT CODE FOR BALTIMORE

Who should come?

• New members welcome. We’d love to have both people who have been before AND new people. Interested in seeing what we're about and feeling the vibe of this group? Yay great!
• Many roles needed. We want people from many different roles/backgrounds: developers, designers, user researchers, product managers, communications professionals, and other roles. A sister group of ours Ruby for Good has a great list of roles needed.
• Wide experience range wanted. We want people who are more experienced AND less experienced. We often have a range of skill levels at our events. We don’t formally coordinate mentorship (lately) but mentorship does often happen at these!

Does it cost money? Or will we get paid?
Nope! Our events are free, and nobody gets paid for this work. This is a volunteer organization.

We Coordinate On Slack - Join Us!
Not on our Slack yet? Here's how:

1. Join our Code for Baltimore Slack server using the invite link on our homepage: [CodeForBaltimore.org](http://codeforbaltimore.org/)
2. You might also like to join our sister server - Baltimore Tech Slack is a more general (not just civic tech) server: [BaltimoreTechSlack.com](http://baltimoretechslack.com/)

Needed: Volunteers + Organizers
Want to get involved? We could use your help! The more organizing capacity we have collectively, the more we can do -- together.

First, join our Slack server
Then, come chat with us in the #volunteers-and-organizers channel.

It's okay if you don't want to commit to anything at this point -- you're welcome to lurk! A lot of people want to get a sense of the vibe of the organizing group before signing up to do, and that's totally okay :)

--

Hope to see you there!!
Casey, Shelby, Margo