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Continuum wins!

Congratulations! They win six iPads provided by World Wide Technology.

Photos 1-3 and 6: Lifemap team presents their project, which allows users to create a profile and use similarity mapping to locate neighborhoods that they'd like to live and stay in. Photos 4, 5, 7, and 8: MetroFoursquare presents their project, which aids Metro transit riders as they find the fastest route and retrieves data to help the SMTD optimize its route planning.

Things are getting very exciting! Jon Leek displays prize vouchers to be given to winners; Continuum group introduces us to James, their mentor for homelessness issues; Continuum demonstrates their service, which cuts down on wait times and automates the process by which the homeless reserve beds in shelters; James answers questions about how the service would work.

Good morning again hackers!

Two things to remind you about:

We encourage you to submit your projects for the national event. You can also submit personal stories about your experience, or proposals for other projects that this event helped you develop. The submission form is available here. You may have your project chosen for a Washington, DC, presentation on the value of civic hacking!

Take the survey for free credits on Amazon Web Services. It'll help us plan for next year, which will hopefully be even bigger and better!

Still working hard at 8 AM here in T-REx!

Groups have convened for dinner and presented their progress so far. A couple groups have shifted and narrowed the focus, but all appear to be on track and creating very exciting projects! Here's the news:

Home StL is now working on automating the process by which the homeless currently reserve beds in shelters. Hopefully, that will result in fewer resources dedicated to answering phones, more for creating safe places for more people to stay.

The Livability Index Group is calling their project LifeMap and is doing some heavy data work with lots of different sources.

The Metrolink optimizers are calling their project MetroFourPlay, and its purpose is two-fold: help people navigate public transit in St. Louis by giving them the most efficient route and using audio and visual aids so they don't miss their buses or stops, and gamify Metro transit with scavenger hunts, point systems, and more.

All the teams look excited for their projects' potentials, and it'll be exciting for everyone to see the results tomorrow! Think you might be able to help? Stop by tomorrow before noon to provide your expertise! We'll be on the 12th floor of the Railway Exchange building all night.

Want to switch groups, or are you a newcomer looking for a group to join? Teams are stationed in different rooms on the 12th floor and have already begun work. Here's where you can find them:

Room 1218: StLHome--"Providing Information to Empower the Homeless"

Room 1219: Livability Index Map--"A tool that will determine, based on my preferences & lifestyle, favorable places to live in St. Louis." This group is looking for a UX/UI master to help them bring it to life!

Room 1225: Metrolink Optimization--A way to encourage people to use public transit and help them cut down on wait times.

Off to a great start: brain food and Juristat's Drew Winship!

Looking for inspiration?

During the brainstorming period of our event, you'll be thinking up problems to solve and ways to solve them. The National Day of Civic Hacking has a set of challenges sponsored by federal agencies like the Census Bureau to use their data or address their topic of interest. The event also has a Hackpad page for individuals to list ideas. The St. Louis County Emergency Management department (represented at the event by Brett Lord-Castillo) also has a separate Hackpad page with infrastructure ideas.

If you're the type who looks for inspiration in available resources, remember to check out the event Socrata portal with its wealth of data sources. Attendees will also see a link to a Google Doc full of links to publicly available data on the event handout. Remember to pick one up if you haven't already! It contains a schedule and directions to the project submission link on the Hack For Change website.

Reason #1 why St. Louis is the home of innovation: NDoCH/RHoK is here!

The calm before the storm (after the storm too, technically).

What to expect at a hackathon

Here's a quick primer for what attendees will be doing tomorrow, and how to prepare. Ready?

1) Check traffic reports. Tonight, the downtown area has been hit with a ton of rain that may result in flooding, and storms that knocked debris into roadways. Make sure that the route you're planning to take is open. MoDOT's Twitter account is a great source for updates.

2) Brainstorm! Attendees will be responsible for bringing ideas regarding problems to solve and solutions as well. Think up a few elevator pitches, and consider any skills you'd like to practice in the course of your team's project.

3) Prepare to exit your comfort zone. Don't plan on pairing up in teams with people you already know. Don't dedicate yourself to doing the same thing for your team that you do for your 9 to 5 job.

4) Bring all the devices! You won't be certain what your team will need to test on until the event itself. Got a tablet computer? A smartphone with an unusual OS? A computer that runs on Linux? It can't hurt!

Please arrive early tomorrow! Registration begins at 9 AM, and exciting things start within an hour of then. If you don't expect to work at T-REx through the night, make sure to arrange working schedules with your team early on. Most importantly: have fun! Changing the world is going to be great!

Reason #2 why St. Louis is the home of innovation: St. Louis City and St. Louis County

In the process of organizing this event to improve St. Louis, the governments of St. Louis City and St. Louis County have been some of the strongest and most helpful supporters we've had. Tomorrow, you'll see just how helpful they've been. Moving forward, teams should consider seeking additional support from the local governments in order to implement their projects in the real world!

codeforamerica

Hacking as a Civic Duty Ignite HRVA slides

Reason #3 why St. Louis is the home of innovation: Answers.com

The company, which had $150 million in revenue last year, is expanding its reach all the time!

Hack a Better St. Louis This Weekend!

We're just a few days away from the first-ever National Day of Civic Hacking. Have you registered yet? Here's a little extra news on the event:

Judges from Bullhorn, World Wide Technology, and LockerDome will determine which team wins prizes. Some of them begin with the letter i, and we have World Wide Technology to thank for them!

Coffee and breakfast will be provided by Chronicle Coffee, so you don't have to worry about losing steam when crunch time arrives!

APIs are being provided by Mastercard, the EPA, the St. Louis Federal Reserve and more, and we expect representatives from all of our data sponsors. Here's your chance to work one-on-one with local representatives to develop your data skills!

Some of these data sets are already available in a Socrata data catalog. Get a leg up by perusing the sets and brainstorming the possibilities!

The Eventbrite page shows about 40 reservations, but we know a number of people that will be showing up without reserving first. To make sure we have a spot for you, sign up through Eventbrite first!

Have any questions? Tweet us: @HackforStL!

Reason #4 why St. Louis is the home of innovation: StartLouis

If you've been following along, you're already familiar with Downtown T-REx. Now it's time to acquaint yourself with StartLouis, an event series that brings startup CEOs to T-REx, where they tell attendees how they achieved success. And it's free!

Today's stock market rebound and the 200 point rise in the DOW also brought some nice increases in share values for St. Louis-based public companies:

Reliance Bancshares Inc. (OTC Markets: RLBS), +6%

Isle of Capri Casinos Inc. (NasdaqGS: ISLE), +4%

LMI Aerospace (NasdaqGS: LMIA), +4%

Stifel Financial Corp.(Nasdaq: SF), +4%

Zoltek Companies Inc. (Nasdaq: ZOLT), +4%

Aegion Corp. (Nasdaq: AEGN), +3%

MEMC Electronic Materials Inc. (NYSE: WFR), +3%

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