Ada Developers Academy is a Gift to Seattle

Yesterday, Emily Parkhurst's interview with Geoffrey Moore was making the rounds on Twitter. Moore's basic argument is that public policy (tax breaks, planning, education, etc) should be more focused on the tech sector and the convergence of UX, data and the cloud and less focused on increasingly less relevant companies (cough, Boeing, cough, cough.)

As if on cue, Code for Seattle hosted a round of presentations by the first cohort of Ada Developers Academy. The night was all about civic apps and (although I was egregiously late) it was a peek into the greatness that ADA is releasing into our city(ies). Three apps were demonstrated tonight:

Where Can I Park?
http://wherecanipark.in/seattle­
Conceived, coded and created by Hsing-Hui Hsu and Liz Rush, this app helps drivers in Seattle make sense of the insanity that is finding a place to park.  Sadly, it doesn't work outside of Seattle (but that's where you really need it, anyway!)

What Do I Do With____?
http://www.wdidw.com/
Created by Audrey Carlsen, WDIDW was inspired by the (rather sad) old King County website that attempted to do the same. It's a really cool app. I wish it had been around the last time I moved! :)

Map My Districts
Map My Districts is a special in-house app that was created by Anne Kimsey for the Seattle City Council in order to cope with the new redistricting that just took place.  My head almost exploded when she showed the polygon math that's going on in the background when drawing the maps!

And these are just three of the capstone projects created by the first cohort of the Ada Developers Academy after 24 weeks of studying. Can't you just imagine what scores of ADA graduates are going to be able to do for Seattle?