Denton is deserving of big ideas. And we have an innovative, creative, and ambitious citizenry full of them. You might recall last year’s Ideas for the City forum we held at Rubber Gloves, where anyone could pitch their big idea for Denton. Out of that came the idea to change Denton’s liquor laws, create a Music Mentoring program, and many other ideas that have already been accomplished or are currently being brought into reality.
Last night we saw the culmination of two weeks of citizen input and idea generation in response to the recent Bloomberg Philanthropies What Works Cities grant announcement. ListenDenton.com was created by citizens to gather input on city problems that could be addressed by bringing open data and tech to the table. We went to schools and many place in the community and heard 111 ideas of how to make our city better.
Below you can see the 7 ideas that were pitched to a panel made up of the Mayor, the City Manager, one of the Assistant City Managers, the Director of Economic Development, the head of Keep Denton Beautiful, and other senior level city staff members.
Click here to see the slides from the pitch presentations.
WTH? CITY PROJECT TRACKER
How can citizens better understand how their tax dollars or bond money is being spent along with a moving timeline of key projects in the city?
LOCAL CHARITIES GIVING APP
How can we make it easier for citizens to know about and donate money or services to local charities?
TREE GIVE-AWAY TRACKING PLATFORM
As the city embarks on an ambitious tree give-away initiative, what sort of tech tools and data tracking would help the city and citizens understand where the trees are going, how they are doing, and better assess long-term impact on our city’s tree canopy?
WHERE’S MY SPOT, BRO? – INNOVATIVE PARKING SOLUTIONS
How can we bring smart data and tech to the table to help with this very practical issue, particularly in our downtown area?
A BETTER WAY TO MAP AND NOTIFY FOR PRIVATE DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS
How can we create a better, more user-friendly way to notify and inform citizens of pending rezoning and development projects in their neighborhood or around town?
VIRTUAL ADOPT-A-SPOT/VIRTUAL BETTER BLOCK
Everyone has an idea of how a place in their neighborhood or around town that could look better – this team will ask how we can use technology to help citizens bring these areas to light and display their ideas to the entire city.
SOCIAL ROI – EVALUATING AND ASSESSING SOCIAL SERVICES
How can we bring data to the table to help make smarter and more strategic decisions on funding and collaborative projects addressing Denton’s biggest social needs?