Code for Philly volunteers give back to our community by donating their skills and time towards not-for-profit, civic-minded, open source projects. Browse our community’s project directory to identify where you can volunteer.

New to Volunteering?

If you’re new to volunteering or creating your own project, please check out our Projects 101 Blueprint slides.

For detailed advice on starting your own project, check out our own github ‘getting started’ project repo.

FYI - All our Projects 101 content is open source. Submit your own pull request to make it better with your own suggestions!

Remember, you’re a part of a national community of civic hackers

Check out Code for America’s project page for more opportunities to volunteer or for inspiration on the next project to start here in Philly.

Looking for our Code for Philly Civic Cloud hosting information?

Check out our documentation and github workflow here

Philly Bike Action Prototyping

This project is creating a customized Discord bot for the Philly Bike Action server.

It will also connect to the Philly Bike Action website.

Primarily coded in Python.

 Public Site  Developers

Give Schools - Needs Board Prototyping

Overview

Supporting Schools Through Tech

We envision a world where every school has access to the resources they need to provide a nurturing and effective educational environment.

Our platform allows schools to post their needed supplies, contributions, or volunteers for events connecting them with warm-hearted individuals and organizations eager to make a difference. Whether you're a school in need or a benefactor, GiveSchools is here to foster meaningful connections and help cultivate the fertile grounds of education.

 Public Site  Developers

Balancer: AI-powered Bipolar Medication Decision Support App Prototyping

Balancer (previously named "MedAssist") seeks to solve the problems created by the trial-and-error decision-making process that psychiatrists/medication prescribers and patients go through when choosing medications for bipolar disorder.

If you're interested in getting involved, email kjost@codeforphilly.org or go to https://www.codeforphilly.org/chat and introduce yourself in the #balancer channel. Kat Jost (@itskatnotcat) and Tai Chan (@tai) are the project leads.

Project Overview

The mission of the Balancer project is to shorten the journey for patients with bipolar…

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PhillyTRUCE: A future where every community is functional, safe, and well-served in their neighborhoods by schools, media, and institutions. Prototyping

PHILLY TRUCE: Mediation, Referral and Peace Patrol (or Street Outreach) are the primary services we provide.

The PhillyTRUCE app aims to disrupt the cycle of community-level violence by enabling residents to take an active role in their own safety. We seek to foster a community where safety is a co-created, shared responsibility.

PHILLY TRUCE is more than a movement; it's a call to action. We're disrupting violence right where it happens and need your help. Volunteer for safety patrols, mentorship programs, or social media campaigns. Be the change you want to see….

 Public Site  Developers

Code for Philly Website Redesign Prototyping

cfp-mockup

Code For Philly homepage mockup. You can view our progress here: http://datakeepteam.com/

Goal

The goal of this particular project is just to re-do the homepage first, and connect it to the existing old pages and Laddr. The issues on our "Issues" page in this repo are ones that the leadership team has identified as things they would like changed. However we're open to other ideas of course.

Repo

https://github.com/CodeForPhilly/cfp-mockup

 Public Site

Philadelphia Bail Fund Interactive Data Portal Prototyping

Philadelphia Bail Fund (PBF) is a revolving fund that posts bail for people who are indigent and cannot afford bail. Our goal is to keep families and communities together and vigorously advocate for the end to cash bail in Philadelphia.

This project aims to provide up to date reports and visualizations on bail, and to track over time its adverse impacts on different populations (e.g. its impact on poorer areas, based on race, or those in jails during the covid 19 pandemic). These reports can educate the public and hold decision makers accountable.

They currently obtain…

 Public Site

Covid 19 - Jail Response Prototyping

Currently, roughly three groups of people are being held in local jails:

  • those serving short sentences
  • those held on cash bail
  • those held by the probation department pre hearing

In light of Covid 19, a group of advocates and attorneys from the city’s two bail funds, the #no215jail Coalition, Media Mobilizing Project, & ACLU of PA, are rapidly working to find ways to gain release of all those on local county jail who do not need to be there. The District Attorney’s Office (DAO), the Public Defender (PD), the Philly Police Department (PPD) recognize the need to move most…

Computer Vision for Prevention Point Forms Prototyping

Computer Vision for Prevention Point Forms

Prevention Point collects data via handwritten forms. This project seeks to use computer vision to eliminate the need to do data entry by hand.

This project is to design a piece of software to record information from scanned forms for Prevention Point. This project utilizes openCV and the Microsoft Azure API. Please contact the project lead on slack on how to get access the API key.

Main Project Parts

1. Form Intake Interface

There are several different types of forms that need to be scanned. The form intake…

 Developers

Code for Philly - Creating New Projects and Partnerships Prototyping

About

At Code for Philly (CfP), we actively work to connect non-profit partners with technical volunteers. Making and growing partnerships at Code for Philly is something that anyone can do. This project will help non-profits tap into Code for Philly resources, by creating a guide on starting new partnerships.

A partnership can be..

  • An introduction to a non-profit org.
  • Starting a new Code for Philly project with them.
  • Securing space for future CfP meetups, to enable people to collaborate.

Currently, this project is focused on helping non-profits get…

 Public Site  Developers

PAWS Data Pipeline Prototyping

WHO IS PAWS - As the city's largest animal rescue partner and no-kill animal shelter, PAWS is working to make Philadelphia a place where every healthy and treatable pet is guaranteed a home. Since inception over 10 years ago, PAWS has rescued and placed 27,000+ animals in adoptive and foster homes, and has worked to prevent pet homelessness by providing 86,000+ low-cost spay/neuter services and affordable vet care to 227,000+ clinic patients. Just in 2018, 3,584 animals were rescued and 36,871 clinic patients were served. PAWS is funded 100% through donations, with 91 cents of every dollar…

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Gratis Prototyping

Gratis is a platform that connects restaurants that have surplus food with shelters to provide a solution to the hunger problem in Philadelphia.

 Public Site  Developers

PA Hospital Finder Prototyping

This project is a simple react/typescript app that takes publicly available hospital data along with a users geolocation and finds the nearest hospital location to the user and presents hospital information and directions in a card format to the user. WARNING geolocation in web browsers can be fairly in accurate and this app is meant for demo purposes only!

 Developers

Resource Philly Map Prototyping

Resource Philly Map (RPM) aims to make accessing critical services across the city quick and easy for people in need.

RPM aims to help folks in Philadelphia experiencing homelessness or other difficult times, connecting them with food, housing, medical care, and other services. RPM reduces the cost of access, by listing services that are nearby, personally relevant (e.g. gender/age), and with available inventory. RPM empowers community nonprofit organizations to log onto the app, update their information, and increase the reach and impact of their services.

RPM takes inspiration…

 Public Site  Developers

Prevention Point Unified Reporting System Prototyping

Prevention Point is a private nonprofit organization providing harm reduction services to Philadelphia and the surrounding area.

Currently, they are storing data from their programs in separate Excel spreadsheets, disparate EHRs, and partner data systems. This prevents them from being able to see all activities associated with an individual program participant, and also makes it impossible for them to do meaningful analyses that monitor program health and evaluate efforts.

This project would work to migrate all of the disparate data sources into one system,…

 Developers

Trashinator Prototyping

Make less trash!

Every year, the City of Philadelphia disposes 1 ton of waste per resident. That is … impressive. The city has also made it a goal to eliminate litter and landfill use by 2035.

What about us?

How much trash do we generate? What's normal? What's possible? I want to find out so that we can finally throw away the name "Filthadelphia."

This is a simple web-app to let you keep track of your estimated landfill use.

Help out!

Right now it would be especially helpful to have:

  • Beta…
 Public Site  Developers

My Brother's Keeper Prototyping

My Brother's Keeper was conceived in response to the problem of lopsided inventory levels at donation centers serving Philadelphia's homeless. These centers often have an abundance of a few types of donated goods, while many others are in short supply. This web application will enable such donation centers to inform the community of what items they need by simply selecting the items from a list of their general inventory. If greater specificity is needed, they can add comments for any item.

For those who wish to donate, our main landing page will have a geolocation display with charity…

 Developers

Match Match Philly Prototyping

Match Match Philly will integrate the City of Philadelphia's engagement data collection system (VAN) with its volunteer recruitment tool (VolunteerMatch). The City is moving to track all engagement data with this tool to increase data sharing and improve the way departments track and conduct engagement. This integration will enable seamless tracking and management of volunteer recruitment data.

 Developers

Cypher Philly Prototyping

Cypher Philly Project Wiki

The Idea:

The Philly Graph DB meetup group has started a new initiative called Cypher Philly. The initiative is intended to inspire and equip citizen journalists, data enthusiasts and social activists with the tools and data to do good for the city and citizens of Philadelphia.

There are a number of reasons why Philadelphia needs your help from public safety issues, to beautifying shared public spaces or even unheard police complaints. Our goal is to harness the untapped potential of OpenDataPhilly.org…

 Public Site  Developers

FortifyingFamilies Prototyping

Fortifying Families is an app for families/friends/advocates/supporters of incarcerated persons to assist the returning citizen in the reentry process.

Modus Prototyping

Modus-Keystone is an augmented reality game to learn about Pennsylvania's rich historical sites. Participants earn crypto currency for reaching new historical landmarks and for solving puzzles associated with each destination.

 Public Site  Developers

Megalithic Timeline OpenSource Project Prototyping

The Idea:

Megalithic Timeline is an open-source project I wanted to build in order to convey a better history of human made megalithic structures throughout history. I've been fascinated with uncovering the anthropology of the people who built these unbelievable monuments which have withheld the test of time and forces of nature to tell us about our past.

Build Goal:

My goal with this project is to help bring together people who are interested in discovery history through coding together to build dynamic apps to help convey this history to broader audiences. This Tool will be…

 Public Site  Developers

SEPTA On Time Prototyping

Plan your trips better by checking your SEPTA route before you go.

Govmeeting Prototyping

Software to improve involvement in local government.

Shortly after a government meeting, you will be able to:

  • Receive via text or email, a summary of issues discussed.

  • See exactly what was said on each issue that you select.

  • Receive a text or email alert when an issue that you select is discussed.

At any time, you can go online and see:

  • All issues discussed in past meetings.

  • All that was said in the past on any specific topic.

  • Exactly what any specific official said on any specific topic. This is especially useful at election time.

NOTE: The current…

 Developers

Leverage: Philly Campaign Finance Prototyping

The goal of Leverage is to empower citizens of Philadelphia to use campaign finance data when making informed decisions about who they donate to, who they support, and who they vote for.

The foundation of Leverage is the campaign finance data published by the City of Philadelphia. On top of the data we are building a simple user interface with a search feature that leads to a few visualizations.

Our Guiding Principles

  • Empower citizens to make informed decisions.
  • Not to single out individual contributors (we're not doing this to facilitate punitive actions)
  • Keep in mind…
 Public Site  Developers

Addictive Science Prototyping

This project is my effort to get the startup Addictive Science involved with the local Philadelphia Science/Tech communities. Addictive Science is an online learning environment designed to virtually immerse everyday people in discovery & curiosity while engaging minds with STEM Sciences through online social discovery apps. I started building www.AddictiveScience.com as a means to embrace my new career in Science Communication and Technology. The programming & design goals of Addictive Science from conception were to make all of our code open…

 Public Site  Developers

Resource Awareness for Philly Prototyping

Resource Awareness Philly is a open-source project that started at the Code for Philly SustyHack2015 from 10/17/15 - 10/18/15 in Philly. The goals of the project are

  1. To create a comprehensive data set for all services for folks who need little help to get back in the game in Philly.

  2. Provide web service REST apis to access and update the data set so that clients (web/mobile) can be developed.

  3. Build a responsive web application that users in Philly can access on public library computers etc. as well as by services providers on desktop and mobile devices.

  4. Iterative UI…

 Developers

Energy Consumption Visualization Prototyping

The goal of the energy consumption visualization tool is to enable interested stakeholders to be able to gain invaluable insight into their building energy usage and use it in making informed decisions about energy efficiency, investment in renewable energy, and overall sustainability.

This project uses the Department of Energy's Standard Energy Efficiency Data: https://energy.gov/eere/buildings/standard-energy-efficiency-data-platform

 Developers

My EP Prototyping

This project is designed to provide middle school-aged and high school-aged students with learning disabilities, understand their rights as students with IEP (Individualized Education Plans). It gives them the tool to empower themselves and take charge of their education.

 Public Site  Developers

Philly Transpo Art Prototyping

About

A view of the [select] modes of transport, revealed by activation, to illustrate the levels/amount/rate of movement across the city.

Bike share pods flash when the number of bikes available changes (currently 15 minute intervals) Rail stations change with frequency of service during 15 minute windows (radius changes for heavy rail, opacity changes for light rail) Bus routes traced by shooters (eventually will glow more heavily based on bus frequency) See @karaml's project pitch here.

Data

Quasi-realtime data from the…

 Public Site  Developers

Friendtervention Prototyping

An web app designed at the Apps for Philly Health hackathon in May 2015. The goal of the app is assist a user in finding the best options available when facing a mental health crisis.

 Public Site

SocialVote Prototyping

What is this?

A platform to explore whether or not your friends, family, and neighbors have voted. We hope that people will use this information to encourage others to become active participants in democracy.

How did we get this information?

The Secretary of State is required by law to publish voting history and registrations for all voters in Pennsylvania. This information is available for purchase for $20. This is information does not include how people vote, just whether or not they have voted….

 Developers

Philly Vote Check Prototyping

iOS repo: https://github.com/jtwiest/PhillyVoteCheck

web repo: https://github.com/CfABrigadePhiladelphia/philly-vote-check front-end is on gh-pages branch; master branch has server-side components

Philly Vote Check

Overview:

Where is my Polling station? This Application is designed to help voters identify and locate their polling place based on their district, ward and/or address. In addition, the application will help voter that need assistance with accessibility locate polling places that can accommodate their needs.

Features:

Philly Vote Check will provide the…

 Public Site  Developers

Transportation Committee Maps Prototyping

Just trying to produce some simple maps that overlay demographic data with maps of transportation committee members to support a legislative campaign. Looking for data transformation help!

 Public Site

Bicyclist Detector Prototyping

The aim of this project is to create a bicyclist detector. Given a video, the algorithm should detect the bicyclist within each frame of the video. Hopefully, this can be used to get bicyclist counts.

chorebox Prototyping

Chorebox is to be an alternative to -autoconf- — only unlike -autoconf-, it will run at install-time rather than be a tool that only the developer needs. Some might shrink from this strategy in that it creates one more dependency — but really, it doesn't do so any more than requiring this or that library would —- and using this strategy (rather than that embraced by -autoconf-) will afford far more flexibility in package design.

 Public Site  Developers

VoteWise.net Prototyping

VoteWise

Using Mongo, NextJS

2 min Video https://player.vimeo.com/video/408236980

VoteWise.net is a non-partisan non-profit website that connects voters, organizations, and politicians without advertising dollars getting in the way. Right now, politicians have serious challenges reaching voters without advertising. This means that politicians have to waste a lot of time begging for money instead of doing what they want to do — help the community. This often forces politicians to listen more closely to the people who give them money than they do to the voters. Likewise,…

 Public Site  Developers

Philly Police Droid Prototyping

Philly Police Droid

Philly Police Droid (PPD) is a Android mobile app that updates users on local crime activity in the city of Philadelphia. PPD displays data of the city's crime activity, traffic advisories and unsolved crime video by police district. Also, users are able to set news alerts based on districts in which they're concerned about.

Data Sources

 Developers

Philly Open Health Prototyping

Important: Read this!

The description below was last updated on March 10, 2015. Click over to our Github project and check out the readme and other docs there to see the current state of the project.

You can find the Huboard we've (sometimes) used to track tasks and progress at Huboard and we (sometimes) communicate with each other at our Hackpad.

Mission Statement

Philly Open Health…

 Developers