JavaScript SDK and the National Day of Civic Hacking (Saturday, June 6)

Developer Community:

Introducing our new JavaScript SDK and the National Day of Civic Hacking (Saturday, June 6)

Over the last two years, we've been engaging software developers around the country and has had the opportunity to observe how they use our API. Based on this experience, we have built some of the most commonly needed functionality into a prototype JavaScript software development kit (SDK). In support of the National Day of Civic Hacking (See: Local Events! below), today we’re launching the City SDK, which aims to provide a user-friendly toolbox to help new and existing users connect local and national public data with Census data and geographies.

Features

• Never have to figure out what your FIPS code is again! Just pass in lat/longs, we handle the translation. Only have ZIP codes? No problem, we translate those too.
• Get values (currently American Community Survey (ACS) 5-yr 2013 only) and Census geographic boundaries (currently GeoJSON only: down to ‘block-group’ level) with a SINGLE CALL... whoohoo!
• A modular architecture which makes mashing Census data up with third-party data a snap.
• Pull down Census Bureau geographic boundaries by sending your own custom geography in the request (currently GeoJSON support only)
• A showcase of examples to help you get started.
• A starting list of aliases for some of our most popular variables (currently ACS 5-yr 2013 only)
• More coming soon! (We hope to extend these functions to more languages. You may add to our issues using the #user stories label to make these and other feature requests)

We'll be giving a live demo of these features and more on June 1, 12pm EST. To register visit: http://bit.ly/1Hvu0Xg

 

Join us for the National Day of Civic Hacking!

National Day of Civic Hacking: On Saturday, June 6, 2015, thousands of volunteers from across the United States will come together in their local communities to help residents, community groups, and government collaborate to make their communities stronger.

Sign up and attend a local event to take our challenge:

Don't forget to submit your #citySDK projects to our Challenge.gov national City SDK challenge.

Teams taking on the CitySDK Challenge and the makers of the City SDK will be participating IN PERSON at the following local events (please let us know if you'd like to lead up a team in your city! Contact info below):

Chicago, IL:Join the Urban Sustainability Apps Competition featuring Avi Bender, Census CTO.  Register here and be sure to check the box: “Using the City SDK”

Washington, DC:The Census CitySDK team is partnering with Small Business Administration for the D.C.  CODE-A-THON SMALL BUSINESS EDITION

Minneapolis, MN:Join the Twin Cities Census CitySDK team.

Boston, MA:Join the Open Data Nation CitySDK team. Open Data Nation helps cities and causes put their open data to good use.

Los Angeles, CA:  Join the ESRI team at hackforla.org and work on a CitySDK project.

Philadelphia, PA:Join the CodeForPhilly team

St Louis, MS:
Join OpenDataSTL

For more info on any of these events, email: lilibeth.a.gangas@census.gov