SF Acropolis - Your voice heard, Mayor to Answer

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  SF Acropolis represents a civic engagement platform that redefines how citizens of San Francisco interact with the local government.

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  SF Acropolis is designed to collect community voices, where residents can share issues and cast their votes to prioritize these issues.

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  SF Acropolis strives to foster a community that is engaged, well-informed, and quick to respond with interactive voting system.

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  This digital agora is further enhanced by providing relevant information and resources, tailoring updates to individual user interests.

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  SF Acropolis offers a safe platform for voicing your opinions and standing with your community.

Inspiration

SF citizens want to be heard and seen. The gap between the government's actions and the public's priorities has often been a source of frustration. Our initiative aims to close the gap and empower citizens to have a tangible impact on city policies through direct dialogue and feedback with elected officials.

What it does

"SF Acropolis: Speak Up, Mayor Listens" lets SF locals post their city issues and vote for what matters most. The biggest concerns get a direct answer from the Mayor. Additionally, for those who shared the postings, the platform uses AI to send you updates on stuff that could help, based on what they care about. For government officials, the platform categorizes the concerns and provides summarized insights on what people think about the various issues.

How we built it

We aggregated publicly available transcripts from public hearings from SF Open Data, Planning Commission Hearings Scripts, SF MTA Public Hearing Information and processed them using the Donovan platform, which enabled us to extract relevant sections, reorganize the content, and rewrite it into more accessible language. Additionally, by pooling together databases uploaded to the Donovan platform, we were able to furnish users with further pertinent information. The user interface was developed using Typescript and Next.js. For the backend, we chose Vercel and Supabase for their effortless integration and ability to scale with our needs.

Challenges we ran into

One major challenge we faced was developing an algorithm capable of extracting pertinent details from a large database. To tackle this, we utilized a large language model to condense extensive text into effective queries. We then shifted our strategy to pull relevant data directly from each database, instead of selecting the database first. After gathering the responses from each database, we reran the model to evaluate and compare different responses. The final step was to refine and summarize the answers, simplifying complex jargon and dense text for end-user clarity.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

During the hackathon, we engaged in meaningful conversations with three San Francisco residents, gaining insight into the issues they find most pressing. This experience highlighted the diversity of individual concerns and reinforced our commitment to providing a platform where such diverse interests can converge and drive change.

We also took pride in studying international approaches to civic engagement, examining Finland's online dialogue platforms and their feedback systems, as well as South Korea's online public hearing boards which facilitate straightforward sharing and safeguard against vote manipulation. These case studies have informed the design and functionality of our own platform, ensuring it upholds the principles of easy access and fair participation.

What we learned

During our project, we discovered that San Francisco's officials regularly held meetings, known as public hearings, to address city issues. However, the process of reporting issues was complicated, and public awareness and attendance were surprisingly low. The data shows that the recordings of these hearings have very few viewers, often less than ten people. By simplifying access to these resources and making the participation process more engaging, we believe more citizens will be encouraged to get involved and contribute to solving city problems. Our aim is to enhance the impact of these official meetings by ensuring they genuinely reflect the community's primary concerns.

What's next for SF Acropolis

We are dedicated to establishing mechanisms that guarantee equal participation opportunities for all users, ensuring that the platform remains a fair and democratic space for civic engagement. Subsequent steps for the platform include the implementation of robust content moderation systems to prevent the dissemination of harmful or sensitive material. Additionally, we will prioritize the development of advanced cybersecurity measures to safeguard against politically motivated cyber threats.

Built With

• donovan
• next.js
• postgresql-with-supabase
• typescript
• vercel