As part if the national day of hacking, the City of Los Angeles did its part in drawing hundreds of participants in the one of the largest, if not THE largest, civic gathering of its kind this past weekend.
The weekend kicked off Friday night at coworking studio CTRL Collective, which opens soon in Playa Vista, LA’s hub for companies such as Google, YouTube, Yahoo, Facebook, ICANN, Belkin, IMAX, Microsoft, Verizon, EA, TOMS, and numerous ad agencies. The evening peaked with Representative Maxine Waters welcoming CTRL Collective to the neighborhood.
The hacking started bright & early Saturday morning at the DWP building in downtown LA. Mayor Eric Garcetti, Chief Data Officer Abhi Nemani, and Chief Technology Officer Peter Marx addressed the audience, made up of over 200 attendees of all ages (from 14 to 70!) and races and socioeconomic backgrounds, students and pros and retired alike, representing two dozen teams focused on building hacks to address Water Usage, Transportation, Immigration, and other quality of life issues pertaining to the City.
Citing recent Open Data partnerships with Waze, Google Now, and Gimbal, the speakers encouraged the audience to use the City as a tech platform, to help the City solve bottlenecks in order to make life better for everyone involved. Mayor Garcetti even highlighted the City’s recent improvements to something as mundane as trash collection, citing the use of sensors and data to measure and improve Clean Streets.
From the California HealthCare Foundation: 1st place winner: Transportation + Health – $2,000: Pool Party & Urban Trail 2nd place winner: Children Health – $750: ExBully
3rd place winner: Asthma – $250: Breath L.A.
