AI for Civic Tech, Virtual Civic Hack Night

Special Guest Presentation
AI for Civic Tech: Supercharging Local Organizing with AI-Powered Workflows
Speaker: Bethany Crystal

Civic engagement is evolving, and AI is emerging as an unexpected but powerful tool for grassroots organizing. Whether you’re running a neighborhood association, mobilizing volunteers, or advocating for local policy changes, AI can streamline workflows, amplify communication, and help communities scale their impact.

Drawing from her experience building a block association on the Upper West Side—and using AI to transform hyper-local organizing—Bethany Crystal will walk attendees through a practical AI 101 framework for civic tech. This session will cover how to define “AI-shaped problems,” identify small but meaningful workflow improvements, and use AI tools for tasks like automating communications, synthesizing community input, and making data-driven decisions.

For those curious about how AI can complement—not replace—grassroots efforts, this talk will offer an incremental, hands-on approach to building AI fluency while strengthening civic engagement.

Speaker Bio
Bethany Crystal is a technology and community leader with 15+ years of experience spanning startups, venture capital, and nonprofits. She has built scalable grant programs, launched AI-integrated learning initiatives, and led strategic projects at Union Square Ventures, Tech:NYC, and the Uniswap Foundation. As the founder and CEO of MuseKat, she is redefining how families engage with museums through AI-driven, immersive storytelling. Bethany also leads Manhattan 75, a hyper-local block association on the Upper West Side, where she uses AI to enhance civic engagement and neighborhood organizing. She serves on the boards of Hiro, a Bitcoin developer tools company, and Comp Sci High, a charter high school in the South Bronx.

Virtual Civic Hack Night

Join SF Civic Tech (formerly Code for San Francisco), a grassroots group of volunteers learning and applying our skills with technology, design, research, and more in service of the public good of San Francisco.

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PLEASE help promote our community by registering ahead of time in Meetup.
To join online: https://c4sf.me/zoom
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Our weekly "hack nights" offer an opportunity to join the tech community, network, learn about what's going on, and contribute to projects for your passion or portfolio.

Everyone is welcome regardless of your current skillset. If you're unable to attend at this time, you can still join us on slack (http://c4sf.me/slack), where you'll find links to current projects and links to project calls.

How it works:

• 6:30: Zoom opens: Opening announcements, Special Guest Presentation
• 7:00: New Member Orientation
• 7:00 - 9:00: Work on projects, explore civic issues, and make new connections
• 9:00: Lights out!

Good to know:

• Join our Slack workspace (c4sf.me/slack), where we collaborate remotely
• You can contact the core organizers at hello@codeforsanfrancisco.org
• We ask everyone to abide by our Code of Conduct (https://c4sf.me/code-of-conduct/). We will not hesitate to remove anyone who does not respect our community norms.