Chicago’s Plan to Democratize Taxi Technology

The “Uber effect” has reverberated throughout the world across a number of industries, creating marketplaces and leveling competition. But rather than conceding to Uber’s dominance in the taxi business, Chicago is taking the reigns in deciding who will lead the city in taxi and ride-sharing services.
The Chicago Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection will begin accepting bids from companies to design a universal app for city dwellers to use to hail a cab, the Chicago Tribune reports. The city is looking for an all-in-one app that can let users look for the nearest service, rather than using individual apps like Uber or Lyft or calling one of the city’s numerous taxi services.
The government-sponsored project is similar to the Department of Transportation partnering with Alta Bicycle Share to develop the city’s bike-sharing program, Divvy.

The city wants an app that “riders find it easy enough to use, and, most importantly, are protected,” and “wants to ensure that a competitive procurement process is followed and respected,” says Mika Stambaugh, spokeswoman for the Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection. A proposal to create the app has been submitted to the City Council, as a part of a series of changes with the goal of increasing taxi driver income without changing the taxi fare infrastructure.

But the concern lies with the potential of a company like Uber winning the bid and ultimately taking control of the industry in Chicago. Uber, which began as an alternative to taxis by connecting off-duty black car drivers with riders, has now launched a series of services that has created backlash among the taxi industry.

“Government is essentially endorsing one app as the centralized dispatch,” says George Lutfallah, publisher of Chicago Dispatcher, a taxi trade publication. “My concern is that it limits choice, and that whoever wins the contract won’t have as strong of an incentive to serve the drivers and the customers.”

While the city does not maintain data on how many rides are through taxicabs, private black cars or limousines and ride-sharing operations, there are almost 7,000 licensed taxicabs and 15,327 taxicab and livery drivers throughout Chicago, according to the TribuneTransportation experts estimate around 60 to 70 percent of the market belong to taxis, limousines making up around 20 percent and ride-sharing services taking up the remaining 10 percent.

But with the potential of the growing ride-sharing industry, those estimates could soon change. Which is why it’s important that the company selected to design the app is truly leveling the playing field.

MORE: The Start-Up That’s Recruiting 50,000 Military and Veteran Drivers

The Last Thing Veterans Need Is Student Loan Debt…

A common misconception is that any veteran who wants a college education can finance it through G.I. Bill. But sadly, this isn’t so. Both the old version and the new, post 9/11 one exclude certain education expenses and neither applies to student loan debt accrued before servicemen and women entered the military.
So the Chicago-based nonprofit Leave No Veteran Behind is offering a “Retroactive Scholarship” that has already helped 10 veterans pay off their student loan debt and get back on track toward productive post-military lives.
One of the first beneficiaries is Delaina Conour, who was attending college when the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11 spurred her to enlist in the Army. During training, she suffered a back injury and was eventually medically discharged, according to the Christian Science Monitor.
Delaina’s husband is a disabled veteran, and in 2006, they had a daughter with Down syndrome who has undergone 12 surgeries. The overwhelming medical expenses, coupled with her preexisting student loan debt, was too much. “We ended up forced into bankruptcy and ended up losing our home because of medical bills,” Conour tells Hayley Fox of Take Part.
Their bankruptcy declaration didn’t clear student loan debt, however, leaving the family with $15,000 worth of debt. But fortunately, Leave No Veteran Behind stepped up and covered Conour’s $10,000 portion of it. “I didn’t even know help like this existed,” Delaina says.
Every year, Leave No Veteran Behind’s scholarship committee meets to review applications. They give priority to veterans suffering hardships — including unemployment and medical difficulties. The committee selects several and pays their outstanding student loan debt off in full.
In exchange for paying off student loan debts, Leave No Veteran Behind also asks the vets to commit to 100 to 400 hours of community service “that leverages their military skills, civilian education and lack of indebtedness to help solve the most pressing issues facing their communities,” according to the nonprofit’s website.
Veterans Roy Sartin and Eli Williamson are the founders of Leave No Veteran Behind. Both struggled with student loan debt and unemployment when they returned from service in Iraq and Afghanistan. So in 2009, they started the nonprofit that they wished had existed for them.
So far, the organization has paid off almost $150,000 in student loan debt. By getting the word out about their efforts, Sartin and Williamson hope to eventually help 60 to 70 veterans a year, removing one big stressor as these soldiers transition to civilian life.
MORE: This Nonprofit is Making Sure Kids of Fallen Heroes Can Go To College

The City With the Most Ambitious Computer Science Program in the Country

Watch out, Silicon Valley. Our generation’s next tech hub might be in a much windier city.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has partnered with Code.org (a computer science education nonprofit) to help bring computer science classes to every public school in the city, from kindergarten to high school.
CNN Money reports that the most ambitious part of the mayor’s plan (which was announced last December) will require high school students to take computer science courses in order to graduate. Fifty percent of high schools will also be offering AP computer science courses within five years.
“In three years time, you can’t graduate from high school in the city of Chicago if you didn’t take code writing and computer science,” Mayor Emanuel said at a tech conference. “We’re making it mandatory.”
MORE: The App Teaching Children to Code Before They Can Even Tie Their Shoes
Computer science is one of the fastest growing fields with job projection numbers poised to reach 4.2 million by 2020. It’s also one of the most lucrative, with starting salaries between $60,000-70,000. However, this booming and high-paying field is one that’s alarmingly lacking in racial diversity. At Google, for example, only 1 percent of the tech staff is black and 2 percent are Hispanic.
The mayor’s new initiative could help close this gap. As CNN Money notes, the majority of Chicago’s 400,000 public school students are black (39.7 percent) and Hispanic (45.2 percent). By providing Chicago’s young men and women with these skills, it could help level the playing field.
Chicago’s computer education efforts reflects a larger national trend. Coding courses are popping up in elementary and middle schools across the country, and now even kindergarteners are learning how to program. Chicago will also incorporate computer science lessons into the curriculum of 25 elementary schools this year.
“Just having kids jump into computer science at the high school level, they don’t have a good context for it,” Cameron Wilson of Code.org tells CNN Money. “Having them exposed early and building on concepts year after year is really important.”
Code.org has partnered with 30 more school districts to promote K-12 computer education, but Chicago’s is the most far-reaching. As Mayor Emanuel says in the video below, “This plan will also compete with countries where children take coding classes as early as first grade and create an environment where we can support the next Bill Gates and Marissa Mayer.”
[ph]
DON’T MISS: Can Google Crack the Code for More Female Computer Scientists?

Buy a T-Shirt, Help a Veteran

Mark Doyle didn’t know a thing about screen-printing t-shirts but that didn’t stop him from starting Rags of Honor, a Chicago-based t-shirt company dedicated to hiring homeless and chronically unemployed veterans.
Doyle now works as the director of Prairie Community Bank in Marengo, Ill., as well as the football coach at St. Pat’s High School in Chicago. But back in 2010, he was hired to help the U.S. Army investigate financial corruption in Afghanistan. While there, he was struck by the dedication of the service members and also by the fact that a lot of money was being spent on foreign aid, while relatively little was dedicated to helping struggling veterans back home.
So Doyle started Rags of Honor, a company that pays its veteran employees a living wage to produce a variety of patriotic and pro-Chicago t-shirts, as well as orders of custom-printed shirts. Rags of Honor trains workers even if they have no related experience and provides them benefits and opportunities for advancement.
The company has been a lifesaver for Navy veteran Tamika Holyfield. “I did two years and a half at the Bartons Air Base in Afghanistan,” she tells Ravi Baichwal of ABC 7 Chicago. “I returned to hardship and turmoil. I didn’t have a place to live, so I was basically living out of my car.”
The same was true for Frank Beamon III, who served as a machine gunner in Afghanistan, but found that his experience there counted for little with employers when he returned home to the Windy City. Both Holyfield and Beamon ended up homeless.
“The day I told them they were hired, they started crying on the spot,” Doyle tells Baichwal. “These are grown men and women. So never underestimate what just a job can mean to somebody who has no hope.”
For those who might think that they don’t have the power to reach out and help veterans, “You don’t have to be the President,” Doyle says. “You don’t have to start Google. Make a difference in the lives immediately around you. Give somebody hope. That’s what we’re doing. That’s what we do, one t-shirt at a time. If I can leave anybody with anything, give somebody hope today.”
MORE: For Homeless Veterans, Gardening Can Be the Therapy That Gets Them Back on Their Feet
 

Chicago Has Rolled Out the Country’s Very First All-Electric Garbage Truck

Now that the Windy City has rolled out the country’s first all-electric garbage truck, some Chicago residents will no longer have the loud clanging and screeching of an approaching trash truck as a reminder to take out the trash.
Built by Motiv Park Systems, not only do these these planet-friendly trucks (called Electric Refuse Vehicles or ERVs) run on a nearly silent motor, they also don’t emit any pollution comes from their tailpipes since they are 100 percent electric, Fast Company writes.
“Besides dramatically lower fuel and maintenance cost, value of the ERV goes beyond strict payback,” Motiv Founder and CEO Jim Castelaz says in a press release. “Each truck offsets over 55 barrels of petroleum and 23 tons of carbon dioxide each year. Plus, no one wants large, noisy truck engines idling next to their house at 6 am when they could have clean, and quieter ERV’s keeping the morning peace instead.”
MORE: Will Chicago Be the Next City to Outlaw Plastic Bags?
Gizmodo reports that if the trial run of the first ERV proves successful, Chicago will add up to 20 more of these trucks to its municipal trash fleet over the next five years at the cost of $13.4 million.
Even with the steep price tag, the city is poised to save a lot of money since it won’t be spending it on dirty diesel. We previously reported that Motiv Power Systems was the company responsible for rolling out California’s electric school buses (also a nationwide first), with each bus saving $10,000 each year in fuel and maintenance for the Kings Canyon unified school district.
As electric cars are becoming more and more popular, it’s clear that America is embracing a cleaner — and yes, quieter — alternative.
DON’T MISS: The Diesel-Chugging Yellow School Bus Finally Goes Green
 
 
 

Children Can’t Learn When There Are Problems At Home. That’s Where Community Schools Come In

Walking down a hallway of Chicago’s South Loop Elementary School, Melissa Mitchell heard a first grader unleash a string of profanities inside a classroom.
“I hear this little voice screaming every curse word I’ve ever heard,” Mitchell says. She looked inside and saw “teeny, teeny” Brianne, standing on top of a desk.
“I’m not going to do this — every word you can think of — spelling test!” the little girl screamed, Mitchell recalls.
At most schools, Brianne would’ve ended up in the principal’s office for discipline. But South Loop is a community school that includes a variety of social services for kids and parents — from medical care and counseling to food pantries and adult GED classes. These facilities, which are gaining in popularity, are based on the idea that no matter how great a teacher is or how many high-tech gadgets a classroom has, kids can’t learn if they’re struggling with challenges at home (think: unemployed parents, a lack of food, the threat of eviction).
Instead of being sent to the principal, Brianne ended up in Mitchell’s office. At the time, Mitchell served as the school’s resource coordinator and was in charge of determining what social supports the South Loop community needs and finding ways to meet them.
Mitchell learned that Brianne wasn’t simply being a brat. The little girl’s parents were going through an acrimonious separation, creating an unstable environment at home. At six years of age, Brianne didn’t understand everything that was happening; nevertheless, it was upsetting her and spilling over into the school day.
After identifying the source of the behavior problem, Mitchell worked with Brianne’s family to address some of the trouble at home. She helped the mother find stable housing and childcare subsidies and connected Brianne and her family to a counselor.
While the community school model that helped Brianne and her family has been around for years — maybe over a century — it’s recently been gathering steam as more and more educators and elected officials see the value of a holistic approach to education reform.
Advocates currently estimate that as many as 5,000 community schools exist in the U.S., with more on the way.
Last year, Michigan’s Republican Gov. Rick Snyder expanded a program placing social workers in schools — a step toward community schools. In June, Democratic Mayor Bill De Blasio announced plans to spend $52 million to open 40 community schools in New York City. And in July, Maryland U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer and Illinois U.S. Rep. Aaron Schock introduced a bipartisan bill that would establish a grant program to create more community schools nationwide.
A strategy, not a program
Each of the community schools created by these efforts will look different. That’s because their underlying philosophy holds that each one should grow and develop in response to the needs of the community it’s in, not according to some pre-ordained plan.
“It’s a strategy, not a program,” says Jane Quinn, Director of the National Center for Community Schools, part of the Children’s Aid Society.
Community schools each do a comprehensive needs assessment to determine what supports are most needed and often end up with school-based health clinics to address student’s physical, mental and dental health needs, including vision-correction to make sure kids that can see the lessons on the chalkboard.
There’s a lot of evidence that wealthy kids succeed partly because they can take advantage of “out of school enrichment,” Quinn says. Community schools can level the playing field with an extended school day and more academic and extra-curricular offerings outside of the traditional school day.
At Earle STEM Academy in Chicago’s impoverished Englewood neighborhood, program supervisor Quintella Rodgers says that after-school activities include a job club that teaches financial literacy, a power group that focuses on social and emotional health and individual academic help, plus photography, karate, Pilates, volleyball, basketball and DJing classes.
For the whole family
In community schools, “the primary allegiance is to the kids in the schools,” said Sarah Zeller-Berkman, who works for Youth Development Institute, which runs Beacon Community Schools in New York City. “But they still need and want to serve the broader community.” One way they accomplish this is by offering programs for parents and finding ways to integrate them into the school.
Community schools offer extra programming by creating partnerships with existing organizations, like colleges offering classes or not-for-profits running mentoring programs. The social services offered in community schools don’t usually duplicate ongoing efforts, but seek to bring them together under one roof.
At Salomé Ureña de Henríquez, a Children’s Aid Society community school in New York’s Washington Heights neighborhood, for example, the additional services offered include a variety of classes and programs for parents.
On a recent tour of the building, Director Migdalia Cortes-Torres pointed out photographs depicting some recent grads, resplendent in caps and gowns, on a bulletin board outside the school’s health clinic. But they weren’t pictures of students who had finished high school or junior high; they were pictures of students’ parents who had received their GEDs through a program at the school.
In addition to the GED program, Cortes-Torres said the school, which serves a largely Dominican population, offers classes for parents in nutrition and cooking, child development, English language and computer skills. They can learn art history, go on poetry retreats and even travel internationally with other parents.
Lidia Aguasanta, the school’s parent coordinator, says that she’s been helping parents to not only get their high-school diplomas, but to go for college degrees as well. “I do trips with them” to local universities because, she says, “they’re scared to leave the community” and are intimated by the complicated process of enrolling in college since many don’t speak English.
In community schools, support for parents help students achieve success, too. Aguasanta recalls a struggling mom that she convinced to enroll at Boricua College in New York City. The woman is now thriving and the simple fact that she’s now pursuing higher ed makes it more likely that her daughter, a 7th grader at the school, will too, Aguasanta says.
Studies indicate success
Beyond anecdotes like this one, research studies are pointing to hard evidence that community schools can reduce absenteeism and dropout levels and improve grades and test scores.
Not everybody is sold on community schools, however. Jason Bedrick, a policy analyst at the Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom, tells the Wall Street Journal that the model needs more study before people invest in it on a large scale. And the New York Times reported last year that while the creation of community schools in Cincinnati has led to some improvements, many of the schools “are still in dire academic straits.”
Nevertheless, staunch opposition to the model is rare. “Community schools have no natural enemies,” says Quinn, quoting Martin Blank, head of the Coalition for Community Schools. Instructors, including those that belong to the American Federation of Teachers, like community schools because they can focus on teaching, not on whether their students are hungry or in trouble at home.
There are, however, “rival hypotheses” about where school resources should go, Quinn says. Some people believe, for instance, that the key to improving education is high-quality teaching and that anything else is just a distraction.
Wendy Kopp, the founder of Teach For America, has dedicated decades to putting new young teachers in schools, based partly on the idea that better teaching is central to better education. But, she also voices support for the principals of community schools.
“All the successful schools … are taking a community approach,” she said at a recent NationSwell event. It’s important that schools are responsive to people on the ground, not to theorists with big fix-all theories. “You need to empower people at the local level.”
At South Loop Elementary, where locals can address education holistically, Melissa Mitchell’s response to Brianne’s profanity-laced tantrum worked.
“It wasn’t a perfect rainbows and butterflies outcome,” says Mitchell, who’s now the head of Illinois’ Federation For Community Schools. But Brianne did settle down and “the father and mother came to a reasonable custody agreement.”
Leaving Brianne with a little less on her mind and giving her the ability to focus on what she was really in school for: Learning.
 
 

Which Cities Are Working the Hardest to Save the Planet?

With more green space and lower greenhouse gas emissions, cities nationwide are striving to become leaders and innovators in the environmental movement.
Recently, the International Business Times decided to take a look at the cities leading the pack, and while the publication didn’t use exact science, it examined criterion such as carbon footprint, LEED certified buildings (LEED stands for leadership in energy and environmental design) and green space, among others to find the top 10 eco-friendly cities in the U.S.
Among their findings (in no particular order):
SAN FRANCISCO
Not only is it the first city to ban plastic grocery bags, but it also has a curbside compost pick-up program, among numerous other eco-friendly projects.
SEATTLE
This rainy town is a leader in green space with seven parks per 10,000 residents. It also has over 20 buildings that are LEED certified or are being built with the intention of being designated as such.
PORTLAND, ORE.
In addition to building a well-structured mass transit system, Portland has taken the bike craze to a new level. It also boasts loads of green space, a strong recycling program and its carbon emissions per capita rank it in the lowest 20 percent of U.S. cities.
CHICAGO
The Windy City is home to the most buildings with green roofs, which not only help to control temperature by heating and cooling the inside, but they also improve air quality – which isn’t a bad asset for any urban area.
BURLINGTON, VT.
With a third of its energy coming from hydroelectric dams, another third from wind energy and the final third from biomass renewal, this northeast city of 42,000 people just began the first city to be powered by 100 percent renewable energy.
While this is just a small sampling of what this country is doing to go green, it demonstrates how cities are working to be more environmentally conscious all the time. To find out the remainder of the top 10, click here.
MORE: Yet Another Reason to Love Leonardo DiCaprio

How Raised Bike Lanes Can Protect Bikers and Drivers Alike

Cities like Amsterdam and Copenhagen have long been recognized for their bike-friendly streets, and now Chicago and San Francisco are looking to their European counterparts for tips on road safety for cyclists.
Next year, San Francisco will unveil its first raised bikeway, a one-block long “showcase” project as a part of the Mission Valencia Green Gateway project, which includes other street improvements like wider sidewalks. Chicago also began building its first one-and-a-half block of raised bike lane this summer, and if the pilot is successful, it will lead to more stretches of the separated path throughout the city.
Raised bike lanes are a subtle way to protect cyclists, separating bikers from cars without the physical bulkiness of barriers. Protected lanes involving barriers can also sometimes make it difficult for drivers who are turning right to see a biker. Barriers can also prove to be confusing to pedestrians and hard to drain or clear away snow.
But the elevated bike paths, which are typically raised by just a few inches above street level, easily prevent cars from interfering, while also remaining separate from the sidewalk. Aside from aesthetic differences, raised bike lanes can also be less costly, according to Fast Company.
Chicago and San Francisco are not the only two cities to experiment with elevated bike lanes. The Oregon cities of Bend, Portland and Eugene, as well as Atlanta and Denver have also incorporated the smart design into their streets.
As more cities recognize the benefits of supporting cyclists, it’s good to see American cities embrace infrastructure that’s proven successful elsewhere.
MORE: What Has Two Wheels, Two Pedals and Can Boost the Economy?

The National Movement to End Veteran Homelessness Continues in These Two Cities

Two midwest cities are stepping up and helping out veterans that don’t have homes.
On Sept. 16, Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel announced a plan to end homelessness among former service members living in the Windy City by 2015. A $5 million program providing housing and other assistance to veterans will be funded through a federal grant, along with $800,000 from the city’s 2015 budget. Chicago will also donate four acres of land for new housing facilities.
In a press conference, Emanuel said, “By the end of 2015, there will not be a homeless veteran in the city of Chicago.”
Emanuel spoke at Hope Manor I, a supportive housing complex for veterans that provides free places to live for up to 50 homeless veterans and affordable housing for 30 more veterans. On the first floor of the building, veterans and their families can take job-training and employment-readiness classes, learn how to use a computer, attend peer support groups and benefit from counseling and case management services. Residents can also gather in a multi-purpose room designed to foster a sense of community among them.
During the press conference, Emanuel announced that a new center Hope Manor for Families — a facility that will accommodate entire families — will open soon.
Since Hope Manor I opened, two other similar facilities have started welcoming needy vets: Hope Manor II and Veterans New Beginnings. According to Fran Spielman of the Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago took a census of its homeless veterans in January — a “point-in-time count” measuring how many people were out on the streets on one night. The researchers found 721 homeless veterans — 465 lived in shelters and 256 had no place to call home.
The same day that Emanuel announced this program, another Midwestern mayor publicly committed his administration to the cause of ending homelessness among veterans by 2015: Mayor Carl Brewer of Wichita, Kansas. KSN TV reports that Brewer announced at a City Council meeting, “Veteran homelessness is not an intractable social problem that can’t be solved”
“By focusing our resources and renewing our communities’ commitment to this issue, we can end veteran homelessness in our city and our country. I’m proud to join mayors across the country as we work toward the important goal of honoring the service of our veterans by making sure all of them have a home to call their own,” said Brewer.
According to KSN TV, since 2010 when the federal government launched Opening Doors (a comprehensive plan to end homelessness) homelessness among veterans in America has decreased by 24 percent.
If the plans of these mayors succeed, Chicago and Wichita could join Phoenix, Los Angeles and other cities who are striving to make homelessness among veterans a thing of the past.
MORE: Giving Homeless Vets A Helping Hand — And A New Uniform
 

Can $45 Million Worth of Data and Technology Improve U.S. Cities?

Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has long supported civic innovation, but the philanthropist is ramping up efforts to help local governments through his charitable foundation’s Innovation Delivery grants.
Bloomberg Philanthropies pledged $45 million to American cities looking to use big data and digital tools to help municipalities solve urban issues like economic development or infrastructure.

“We’re asking cities to do so much more,” says James Anderson, who heads up the innovation programs at Bloomberg Philanthropies. “We need cities to come up with bigger, better ideas more often, and we don’t want to leave innovation to chance.”

More than 80 prospective cities were invited to apply for a grant, which can range from $250,000 to $1 million annually for three years. Candidates must have at least 100,000 residents and a mayor in office for at least two years.

The Innovation Delivery grants will also come with a team of experts to help roll out the charity’s data-driven model, which has been developed based on programs in Chicago, Louisville, Atlanta, Memphis and New Orleans. The teams will serve as an in-house consultant agency for the recipients.

Touting success in the aforementioned cities, Bloomberg notes that using the Innovation Delivery model has led to Atlanta moving 1,022 homeless individuals into permanent housing and New Orleans reducing its murder rate to 19 percent in 2013. Meanwhile, retail vacancies in Memphis’s central economic corridor dropped 30 percent while Louisville was able to cut back the amount of ambulance responses redirecting 26 percent of 911 medical calls to immediate care centers or a doctor’s office.

“Innovation Delivery has been an essential part of our effort to bring innovation, efficiency and improved services to our customers,” Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer says in a press release. “Philanthropy can play an important role in expanding the capacity of cities to deliver better, bolder results. Bloomberg Philanthropies is one of few foundations investing in this area, and it has truly been a game changer for our city.”

Bloomberg Philanthropies will also fund any research, technical assistance and partnerships with other organizations that could expand the foundation’s model, according to the release. For cities that may not qualify or other interested lawmakers, the foundation has also compiled the Innovation Delivery Playbook, which outlines the approach through successful examples in the pilot cities.

Grant winners are expected to be announced this fall with the initiatives planned to kick off in spring 2015.

MORE: Watch: Rachel Haot on How Governments Should Adopt New Technology