CivicTechWR - Ideation Night!
Come join us for Season 9's first hack night! Last week, we had amazing pitches for continuing and new projects.
This week, we'll continue with ideation: let's consider rough architecture, use cases, risks, and opportunities. This is an open-ended event to brainstorm.
As usual, we'll be in the Builder's Club. However, this time we will be downstairs in the basement! Don't get lost, but if you do, please reach out on our Slack.
You can find more information about Civic Tech, including joining our slack, at https://civictechwr.org.
Returning projects
LoMo – Lonely No More (Season 3)
Grew out of the Indigenous Food Sovereignty Collective’s Covid-era mutual aid coordination, which was being run manually across 6+ platforms handling 50–100 messages/day. Joined CivicTech in January to build a matching tool for people offering/seeking help (food, items, walks, microgrants, ceremonies, etc.).
Progress: ~70% of features built; admin tools, login, and in-app messaging done; basic design system in place.
This season’s goal: keep building features, apply visual/responsive design, bug- and language-test the prototype, and start the nonprofit/grant-funding process.
Needs: devs (Next.js, Convex, Better Auth), designers, people with trauma-informed language expertise, and a PM.
Home Hub (formerly Accessible Housing Bridge) (Season 3)
A collaboration with Union Co-op to connect people needing specific accessibility features to housing that has them.
Progress: demo site built — works like a gatekept rental listing site with detailed accessibility descriptions and a goal of no-code admin updates. 62% of last season’s goals done; still need listings info, password reset, workflows, copy, and email infrastructure.
This season’s goal: get pilot-launch ready.
Needs: UI/UX designers, front-end (Next.js/TypeScript) and back-end (TypeScript, DrizzleORM, Supabase/Postgres, Railway) devs, writers/researchers, accessibility/QA testers.
Waterloo Region Votes (multi-year ongoing)
Aggregates candidate profiles, election info, events, and articles ahead of the Oct 26 municipal election.
Progress: location-based candidate search is live; site framework updated with minor tweaks left; currently racing to fill in content.
This season’s goal: candidate outreach, filling content gaps (articles, questionnaires, events), UI tweaks (fixing mangled candidate names), and handling technical surprises as they come up.
Needs: AV volunteers for all-candidates meetings, and general data-entry help (spreadsheet work).
One Million Neighbours (Season 2)
Maps green space, schools, libraries, transit, healthcare, etc. by neighbourhood to help identify service gaps.
Progress: V1 (released earlier this year) plots asset counts per neighbourhood using Statcan boundaries and generated a lot of public feedback.
This season’s goal: V2 — more granular metrics (e.g., park size, transit frequency), better population projections, and flexible neighbourhood boundary definitions (ward/city/custom).
Needs: front-end devs, UX/UI designers, data wrangling help.
New project pitches
SafeQR — Verifies QR codes are legitimate before people scan them, tracks scan activity, and offers a branding angle for community orgs. Open questions: impersonation risk, ongoing maintenance/funding sustainability, and how to define the approval process. Next step: validate demand from both organizations and end users.
Beside — A social platform (part group chat, part activity feed) for keeping long-distance friend groups connected by logging daily moments. Challenges: privacy/sharing controls, and defined tie to a “civic” problem. Flagged as too large in scope for a 4-month cycle — needs narrowing/more research before it’s workable.
My ADHD Café — A café concept designed for neurodivergent people (sensory-friendly areas, no in-person ordering, etc.), or possibly a rating system for how well venues meet these needs. Suggested to partner with an existing café for exploratory market research. Next step: short-term public survey; perhaps a good candidate for a CTWR consultation?