Meet supportive people like you who care. If you're passionate about helping others, Code for Hawaii is perfect to support you.
Make a Difference
Make a difference contributing to Hawaiian social impact projects. Leverage technology to help organizations solve problems.
Gain Experience
Gain experience as a beginner, pay it forward as a mentor. We're part of solving the big picture - a Code for America Brigade.
What to expect at a meeting...
Meet & Greet
We start each meeting with a land acknowledgement, Code for Americaʻs Code of Conduct, and a full round of introductions including your name, where you are calling from and a question of the day.
Debrief on projects and announcements
We will share key milestones, updates, and blockers on projects as well as relevant news from Code for America including participating in national events such as Brigade Congress, National Day of Civic Hacking, and Code for America Summit. We also occasionally welcome guests and partners to share what they are working on so we can continue to learn about how to have impact in Hawaii.
Participate in breakout rooms
Each month the brigade selects a "Focus Project" that we all work on together as a brigade. We also work on developing several other projects in the "background" through our "Discovery Track". Each meetup we create breakout rooms as needed to drive toward our milestones on the "Focus Project" or explore projects in our "Discovery Track"
Projects
Have a project idea? Email us and let's
make it happen!
KUKA NOW
Remote Video Testimony Submission App
FOOD OASIS
Resource for Community Food Help
THIS LAND I STAND
Uniting stewards of culture, community,
and land
HOLOHOLO
Location Based Rights Across O'ahu
SECOND CHANCES:
National Expungement Week
UIPA.ORG
Publishes public records and request
vHawaii
Publishes public records and request
Hawaii Zoning Atlas
A hub for researchers, educators, and advocates
Our timeline
A brief history of Code for Hawaii
2009-2011
Humble Beginnings
Code for Hawaii was being born from idea to family.
March 2011
First Civic App Released
We made it offical and released our first app aimed to help and
improve our community.
January 2012
Code For America
Honolulu Organizes CityCamp 2012. That was the first local event to introduce Code for America, a national organization that aims to “build open source technology and organize a network of people dedicated to making government services simple, effective, and easy to use.”
August 2012
Code For Hawaii joins the brigade!
Code for Hawaii joins the inaugural cohort of Brigades along with Portland, ME; Austin; Boston; Lexington; Philly; Chicago; Denver; San Diego; Grand Rapids; Detroit; Arlington; Asheville; Oakland; Bend; Alexandria
April 2015
Leadership Reboot
Code for Hawaii welcomes a reboot and new leadership.
June 2020
Kaiulu Strategic Promise Developed
Code for Hawaii develops Kaiulu Strategic Promise and clarifies strategic vision for the organization going forward!
Be Part
Of Our
Story!
Be apart of our story!
Join and Make Friends
Have questions or have a project to propose?
Email
info@codeforhawaii.org. Want to connect with
great people that love Hawaii? Join our next meetup event! We meet the first three Mondays of
every month. Join us, even just to say Aloha!
Kuka Now is a remote video testimony submission app.
What is this project about?
KUKA NOW app allows people to submit video testimonies to voice their opinions on various topics. Many people are not able to book flights to Honolulu from other islands. As well, many people have busy schedules and may not be available for in-person testimonies. Another advantage of the app is that people can record testimonies at the place they are discussing.
What are the project goals?
Our goal is to make an MVP for testing of the concept of being able to submit video testimonies remotely.
What project roles are involved?
Roles involved include UX design, Graphic design, Back end development, and story telling.
Food Oasis
Food Oasis is a web app focused on connecting food-seekers with public food resources
What is this project about?
Food Oasis is an interactive web app that helps people locate nearby public food resources. Code for Hawaiʻi built on the tool created by fellow Code For America member Hack for LA Brigade, mapping Oʻahu resources provided by local food rescue nonprofit Aloha Harvest.
What are the project goals?
The goal of Food Oasis is to provide up-to-date and accurate information on local public food resources. By collaborating with local nonprofits and contributing to a common codebase with other brigades, we hope to create a maintainable, one-stop resource that can extend beyond the limitations of any single organization.
What are the project roles involved?
UX design, frontend development (Javascript, React), backend development (NodeJS, Express, PostgreSQL), storytelling (how do we make this meaningful for food-seekers, nonprofits, and the local community)
This Land I Stand
Uniting stewards of culture, community, and land
What is this project about?
This Land I Stand is a project of Natives in Tech, a coalition of Native technologists building tools for Native communities. Given your location, the app shows you the indigenous land you are currently standing on.
What are the project goals?
The goal of the project is to build a relationship with Natives in Tech by providing developer support to an NiT project.
What are the project roles involved?
Although the project is currently inactive, the primarily roles are front end developers.
HOLOHOLO
Location Based Rights Across O'ahu
What is this project about?
In partnership with American Civil Liberties Union of Hawai`i (ACLUHI), the purpose of Holo Holo is to use your geo-location to assist
understanding of whose land you are on and your civil rights there. This app
determines if a location is Public, Private, or Restricted and will provide you with
information about your rights, based on activity.
What are the project goals?
Our goal is to create an MVP for the Island of Oahu and later expand
the app to be state-wide. In addition, the ability for the user to download a zoomable map in
advance.
Second Chances:
National Expungement Week
What is this project about?
On September 28, 2019, Code for Hawaii participated in Hawaii’s first
ever Expungement Day which, through the University of Hawaii Law School, provided a free legal clinic
to clear non-conviction arrests. The event was part of National Expungement Week and highlighted
efforts to reform the criminal legal system both nationally and in Hawai‘i.
What are the project goals?
The project goals included providing expungement services
to eligible Oahu community members.
UIPA.org
Publishes public records and request
What is this project about?
The Uniform Information Practices Act (Modified), HRS chapter 92F, commonly known as UIPA, is Hawaii’s public records law.
Everyone has the right under the Uniform Information Practices Act to ask for and receive access to information from public agencies concerning government operations.
This site increases public record transparency and accessibility by publishing public records requests and replies. This way, people do not have to ask for the same information and replies can be scrutinized by the public.
What are the project goals?
UIPA.org is in production with an active user base. The goal of the project is keeping everything up to date.
What are the project roles involved?
Roles involved included backend development and UX design.
vHawaii
vHawaii is a project to reimagine democracy.
What is this project about?
The vHawaii project’s mission is to “reimagine a stronger, more efficient, and more connected democratic problem solving process for Hawai’i through the embrace of technology, out-of-the-box thinking, and a consensus-based approach to policy-making.” To fulfill this mission, we plan to create an online, consensus-based, community-driven policy problem solving model based on the successful vTaiwan model, which has been used to crowdsource critical policy solutions for Taiwan’s national government.
What are the project goals?
This project, should it prove successful, will fill two persistent needs in Hawaii’s local governing landscape, which is making broad public participation easier for Hawaii residents, as well as enabling the crowdsourcing of creative, consensus-based, and actionable ideas from members of the public for public officials. We anticipate the success of this project will be achieved by centering our process around the open-source online conversation and opinion polling software Pol.is, which leverages AI opinion visualization to help identify divisions and provide diverse participants the knowledge to refine ideas towards the goal of reaching inter-group consensus. We envision this all-volunteer process will open up a new form of community-based leadership in our home state and can serve as a model for other communities.
What project roles are involved?
Project Coordinator, Research Lead, Outreach Lead, Website Designer
Hawaii Zoning Atlas
Hawaii Zoning Atlas is hub for researchers, educators, and advocates
What is this project about?
Building an online-interactive map to educate the public on zoning and land use issues. Our vision is to connect researchers, educators, and advocates.
What are the project goals?
The project's goals are to build an interactive online map to educate the public on zoning and land use issues and generate talking points for affordable housing advocates in Hawaii. Our second goal is to create a website that serves as a hub for the resulting coalition of researchers, educators, and advocates.
What project roles are involved?
We plan to have six teams of no less than four members each: one for each of Hawaii’s four counties with zoning powers, one technical team, and one policy team. The county teams will each be responsible for collecting and verifying regulatory data, identifying and reaching out to potential coalition members within their jurisdiction, and promoting the findings through local channels. The technical team will be responsible for building the project’s website and the interactive map. The policy team will be responsible for interpreting the regulatory data, drafting policy proposals in partnership with coalition members, and circulating those proposals to researchers, reporters, and officials.
