Chi Hack Night Blog

Our 2025 Year in Review

Tue, 24 Feb 2026 00:00:00 -0600

Feb, 24 2026 12:00am

As we gear up for our annual Member Meeting and Board Elections on February 24, 2026, we’re excited to share our 2025 Year in Review with all of our Members and the broader Chi Hack Night community.

If you’re newer to Chi Hack Night, this marks our tenth year of publishing these reflections. They’ve become a living record of how our community has grown, adapted, and continued to champion civic tech in Chicago. You can trace that evolution through our past reviews from 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2017, 2016, 2015, and 2014.

In that spirit of transparency and celebration, here are the high‑level highlights from Chi Hack Night in 2025.

Presentations Breakdown

Below is every presentation from 2025, organized by topic. You can also watch all of them in one YouTube playlist.

Community

664: Govbot: Decentralized Government Data Meets AI Analysis — Built for Citizens and Activists

Advocacy

663: Bicyclist Fatalities — Investigating USDOT-registered Carriers, City of Chicago Contracts, & Insurance Networks

Government

Design

658: Designing Dashboards That Deliver

LGBTQ

654: Namesake — Simplifying legal name and gender marker changes for trans people in the U.S.

Immigration

653: Investigating the Trump administration’s deportations to a maximum security prison in El Salvador

Education

Food security

651: Chicago Food Rescue

Events

646: CityCamp 2025: A global movement of community-focused events that foster civic collaboration and innovation

Transit

645: How the CTA is Fighting Ghost Buses
625: Exploring Bus Service in Chicago

Library

643: For the Public Good: Technology at Chicago Public Library

Housing

Environment and Conservation

Digital Access and Equity

Academic

630: Chicago Neighborhoods Project

Finances

This past year, Chi Hack Night took in enough donations and sponsorships to cover not only our 2025 expenses but also to remain in a good position to continue covering our remote as well as hybrid remote/in-person events well into 2026.

In 2025, we saw continued strength in individual donations. Thank you to those who donated, especially those donated multiple times or are contributing on a monthly basis! We also maintained organizations providing sponsorship donations to Chi Hack Night (thank you For Good Advisory and DataMade!).

As in other recent years, in-person events remained the main expense for 2025, which included providing food, snacks, and supplies at such events. To help ensure the organization’s financial health, one major change in 2025 was moving away from professional video recording and editing, moving to our own equipment to handle the livestreaming and recording of our in-person events. While a bit lower than previous years, we also saw presenters continuing to take advantage of Chi Hack Night’s honorarium for speakers.

Cash on Hand Beginning of 2025	$ 12,509.32
Income
Individual Donations	2,078.00
Membership Fees	600.00
Sponsorship Donations	12,500.00
Total Income	$ 15,178.00
Expenses
Advertising & Marketing	823.44
Event Space	1,430.00
Event Supplies	447.21
Food for In-Person Chi Hack Night	5,982.30
Legal & Professional Services	557.50
Office Supplies & Software	1,369.25
PayPal Fees	52.28
Speaker Honorarium	1,400.00
Taxes & Licenses	11.00
Total Expenses	$12,072.98
Net Operating Income	$3,105.02
Cash on Hand End of 2025	$15,614.34

Chi Hack Night’s Seventh Board Election

Mon, 09 Feb 2026 00:00:00 -0600

Feb, 09 2026 12:00am

On Tuesday, February 24, 2026, Chi Hack Night will hold our seventh annual member meeting and election for our Board of Directors. The Chi Hack Night Board of Directors, composed of 11 members, is responsible for governing our non-profit organization, as well as running our events, managing our website, keeping the books, and doing all the other things needed to make Chi Hack Night happen.

There are a total of 6 seats up in this election. 3 of them will be chosen by Chi Hack Night Members based on popular vote and 3 will be appointed by the current Board of Directors with majority Membership approval. All of the seats are two-year terms.

Here’s a breakdown of the available seats:

Board seat	Current director	Election status
Elected	Kyle Dolezal	Incumbent is running
Elected	Michael Chladek	Incumbent is NOT running
Elected	Sean Watland	Incumbent is NOT running
Appointed	Cameron Sow	Incumbent is running
Appointed	Samantha Goodman	Incumbent is running
Appointed	Sneha Jalukar	Incumbent is running

To vote in this election, or to run or be appointed to a Board seat, you must be a Member of Chi Hack Night as of Tuesday, February 17, 2026. If you are not sure of your membership status, you can email membership@chihacknight.org.

Running for the Board

Are you a Member of Chi Hack Night and interested in running for the Board? Great! Here’s what you need to do:

By Tuesday, February 17, 2026
- If unsure, confirm that you (or the person you are nominating) are a Member of Chi Hack Night by reaching out to membership@chihacknight.org
- Fill out the Candidate Nomination Form. You can nominate yourself or someone else. Remember, though, they must be a Member of Chi Hack Night.
By Saturday, February 21, 2026
- Fill out the Candidate Statement Form. Make your case for why you should be part of the Chi Hack Night Board. All candidate statements will be shared out publicly ahead of the election.
On Election Night Tuesday, February 24, 2026
- Be prepared with a 1–2 minute speech to deliver to Members sharing why you are seeking a position on the Board.

What would my responsibilities as a Board member be?

Being on the Chi Hack Night Board of Directors is a volunteer position and we have no paid staff. All of the work of Chi Hack Night is done by the Board and other volunteers. The Board is divided up into committees responsible for a core function of Chi Hack Night:

Event Ops
Membership & Volunteers
Communications & Promotion

You will be expected to join one or two of these committees to support Chi Hack Night’s objectives and volunteer your time to them. In addition, you will be expected to attend or call in to 9 Board meetings a year. You will not be expected to make any financial contribution to Chi Hack Night.

Have questions about the election process? Let us know at info@chihacknight.org. Want to know what it’s like to serve on the Board? Send a Slack message to any of our current Board members and we’d be happy to share our experiences.

Yay democracy and long live Chi Hack Night! We’ll see you online for the Board election on Tuesday, February 24, 2026.

Meet Chi Hack Night's New Co-Presidents!

Sun, 06 Apr 2025 00:00:00 -0500

Apr, 06 2025 12:00am

From left to right, Sean Watland - Outgoing Chi Hack Night President, Sneha Jalukar and Samantha Goodman, Chi Hack Night Co-Presidents

After serving as Chi Hack Night’s second President, Sean Watland is stepping down after two years. Congratulate Sneha Jalukar & Samanatha Goodman Chi Hack Night’s new Co-Presidents! Sean will remain on the Board of Directors for the remainder of his Board seat term.

Sean, Sneha and Samantha each have a statement to share:

Sean Watland, outgoing President

I am so grateful for my time serving as President of Chi Hack Night. Over the past two years, I am proud to see how much our organization has grown - not only in growing attendance but in how we have embraced change as a community as well. I have so much gratitude for our Board of Directors (past and present) for how much work they have put into making this organization a little bit better every day. Thank you all for embracing change and working hard with me over these years!

Lastly, I want to thank all our whole community for making this place as special as it is. None of what we do could be possible without you all.

I am thrilled to introduce our new incoming Co-Presidents, Sneha Jalukar and Samantha Goodman, as I know they will certainly do great things for our organization!

Sneha Jalukar, Co-President

Hi everyone! I know a lot of you, but let me introduce myself for those who don’t already know me: I grew up in Michigan - and when I was in university I was proud to run multiple “Major League Hacking” hackathon events. When I graduated and moved to Chicago, I was searching for an outlet to get involved in the civic tech community and give back with my skills.

I’ve been so grateful to the Chi Hack Night community for welcoming me with open arms, and I was honored to join the board in 2022.

As the newly elected co-president, I want to carry on the amazing efforts of the board and previous presidents (Sean and Derek). I’m also excited to:

Grow the community - I want to find ways to make our events more inclusive, welcoming to first-time attendees, and sustainably grow the number of members at our events. A lot of people are looking for a space like Chi Hack Night to connect with the community and work on important passion projects. I hope to build on the work of the board to make sure the Chi Hack Night meets the needs of the moment.
Cultivate a culture of learning - I want to carry over a goal from Sean (our last president). Chi Hack Night historically has been a place not only for people to build, but to grow. I would love to encourage more workshops, lighting talks, learning focused breakout groups and “learn with me” moments that celebrate joy and curiosity.
Strengthen partnerships and impact - Chi Hack Night has been running events since 2012! As our membership continues to grow and evolve - and the city and world around us continues to change rather quickly - I’d love to build stronger bridges between Chi Hack Night and the rest of Chicago - whether it’s local nonprofits, city departments, or grassroots orgs.

I’m also thrilled to be working with Samantha, my co-president and fellow board member! With us co-leading, we’re ready to shake things up and bring fresh energy and perspectives to push our organization further.

Chi Hack Night has been frequently described to me as a “do-ocracy” - a place where people who show up and do the work shape what happens next. I’m proud to be a part of that tradition, and even more excited for where we can go forward from here. If you have ideas, thoughts, or want to be involved - feel free to reach out to me anytime.

With that said - go forth and hack!

Samantha Goodman, Co-President

I’m a long-time Chi Hack Night attendee and volunteer, and have served on the Board for the past year. I hope to continue to shepherd a positive and welcoming atmosphere at Chi Hack Night and grow its membership.

The fact that Chi Hack Night has endured so long is a testament to the dedication of the many volunteers, as well as the need for a space to work, learn and collaborate together. I’m looking forward to 2025, and with the uncertainty that we’re all facing, it’s doubly important to maintain and grow our community. There are many things I love about Chi Hack Night that I want to preserve, but also want to be flexible and respond to changes as needed.

Working with Sneha is going to be great - we’re both very dedicated to Chi Hack Night and I look forward to collaborating with her. Since this is a volunteer position we figured there is no reason not to split the duties, work together and get things done as a duo instead of one person completing everything alone. Here’s to a collaborative and wonderful term as co-presidents!

2025 Board Election Results

Tue, 18 Feb 2025 00:00:00 -0600

Feb, 18 2025 12:00am

From top left, elected and appointed Board Members Derek Eder, Josh Kalov, Katie O'Shea, Adam Hecktman, Vien Nguyen

On Feb 18th, we held our sixth election for our Board of Directors. We were amazed at the turnout. Of our 26 official Members, 22 attended virtually to cast their votes.

There were three members chosen by Chi Hack Night Members based on popular vote and two appointed by the current Board of Directors with majority Membership approval. All board members serve 2 year terms. Below are the results and vote tallys.

The elected members of the Board are:

Derek Eder (incumbent) - 22 votes ☑️
Josh Kalov (incumbent) - 22 votes ☑️
Katie O’Shea (incumbent) - 22 votes ☑️

The appointed Board member approved by the Membership is:

Adam Hecktman (incumbent) - 22 votes ☑️
Vien Nguyen (incumbent) - 22 votes ☑️

General Meeting and election process

Voting took place at our Member Meeting, which happens once a year in February. President Sean Watland and Treasurer Michael Chladek presented our 2024 Year in Review and reviewed our organizational finances. We then heard from each of the candidates running for elected or appointed seats. You can read their candidate statements here.

Our 2024 Year in Review

Sun, 16 Feb 2025 00:00:00 -0600

Feb, 16 2025 12:00am

Ahead of our sixth annual Member Meeting and Board Elections on Feb 18, 2025, we’re publishing our 2024 year in review to share with our Members and our community (that’s you!).

As we look ahead to 2025, we also look back at what we did in 2024. Here we go …

For those newer to Chi Hack Night, this is the tenth “year in review” that we have done. Take a look at our year-in-review posts from 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2017, 2016, 2015, and 2014 to follow along how we got here.

In that tradition, here are the high-level statistics for Chi Hack Night in 2024:

Presentations Breakdown

Below is every presentation from 2024, organized by topic. You can also watch all 33 of them in one YouTube playlist.

All 33 Chi Hack Night presentations from 2024

Presentations by category

Climate Change and Environment

Transportation

Justice, Policing and Incarceration

Housing and Shelter

Chi Hack Night Community Projects

Equity

Jobs and Professional Development

Miscellaneous

List of organizations represented

In these presentations, we heard from individuals from an array of organization types, including local government, journalism, academia, nonprofits, and business:

Government

Argonne National Lab
City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events
Illinois Office of Broadband
MBTA

Academia

Chicago Research Group
Discovery Partners Institute
University of Illinois
University of Washington

Journalism

The Appeal
Borderless
City Bureau
Injustice Watch
Illinois Answers Project
Northwestern University

Nonprofit

Alliance for Civic Technologists
Center for Neighborhood Technology
g0v Taiwan
Urban Institute
U.S. Digital Response
World Business Chicago

Advocacy

Bike Lane Uprising
Invisible Institute
Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice
Little Village Environmental Justice Organization

Companies

GTI Energy
TransitOPS

Finances

Chi Hack Night continues to remain financially stable and is in a good position to continue covering our remote as well as hybrid remote/in-person events well into 2025.

In 2024, we saw a noticable uptick in donations received from individuals throughout the year (thank you to those who donated, especially those donated multiple times or are contributing on a monthly basis!). We also had additional organizations provide sponsorship donations to Chi Hack Night (thank you, CompTIA, For Good Advisory, and DataMade!).

In-person events remained the main expense for 2024, which included professionally recording and editing the in-person presentations as well as providing food, snacks, and supplies at such events. We also saw presenters continuing to take advantage of Chi Hack Night’s honorarium for speakers.

Cash on Hand Beginning of 2024	$ 16,613.39
Income
Individual Donations	3,320.00
Sponsorship Donations	10,300.00
Total Income	$ 13,620.00
Expenses
Advertising & Marketing	7,366.09
Event Supplies	185.33
Food for In-Person Chi Hack Night	5,759.00
Legal & Professional Services	343.00
Office Supplies & Software	1,230.37
PayPal Fees	100.07
Speaker Honorarium	2,600.00
Board Retreat Food	114.21
Taxes & Licenses	26.00
Total Expenses	$ 17,724.07
Net Operating Income	$ –4,104.07
Cash on Hand End of 2024	$ 12,509.32

Objectives and Key Results (OKRs)

For our 5th year, the Board has been using OKRs to prioritize what we’ve determined to be areas to focus our efforts to improve our event & build our community. Below, we will recap how we are doing halfway into our 2024 - 25 OKRs.

Progress Key

Whether we will achieve this by June 30, 2025

ON TRACK we will likely achieve this key result
IN PROGRESS we can still achieve this key result, but it will take some extra effort
NOT ON TRACK we will likely not achieve this key result

Objective 1 - Run the event

Produce a live, weekly civic engagement event that meaningfully includes diverse speakers and attendees

IN PROGRESS Key Result 1.1: 80% of events have details published to web & Eventbrite at least 2 weeks in advance

ON TRACK Key Result 1.2: Book at least 3 presentations from each of the following groups: government, journalism, academia, nonprofit, and advocacy

IN PROGRESS Key Result 1.3: Ensure that the composition of presenters is at least 60% persons underrepresented in tech, including BIPOC, women and gender minorities

Objective 2 - Grow the value of Membership & Volunteering

Build & maintain a sustainable infrastructure for weekly operations engaging volunteers and expanding our organization’s capacity

NOT ON TRACK Key Result 2.1: More than 10% of volunteer roles available (non-board required) are filled by non-board attendees

NOT ON TRACK Key Result 2.2: Grow the total number of members by 10%

IN PROGRESS Key Result 2.3: Have 4 non Hack Night events (1 member meeting and 3 social events)

Objective 3 - Increase Chi Hack Night Awareness to drive Engagement and Support

Promote and share Chi Hack Night presentations, events, and projects to a wider audience

IN PROGRESS Key Result 3.1: Increase Net Monthly LinkedIn Followers Gained by 33%

NOT ON TRACK Key Result 3.2: Increase Eventbrite RSVPs by 12%

IN PROGRESS Key Result 3.3: Increase All Attendance by 20%

Thus concludes our 2024 recap. Thanks for reading it. Here’s to a great 2025 for Chicago’s civic tech community! See you Tuesday!

January 2025 Community Feedback Session

Fri, 31 Jan 2025 00:00:00 -0600

Jan, 31 2025 12:00am

On January 14, 2025, Chi Hack Night held a community feedback session. During this hybrid in-person and remote event, participants collaborated to provide feedback on four topics that impact Chi Hack Night Community members. In particular, participants discussed topics of fears and hopes, media and civic literacy, social media impacts, and Chi Hack Night Community.

In this blog post, we recap the content of the discussions and reflect on major themes that emerged.

Event format

Four in-person groups and a single remote group spent ten minutes discussing each question. A volunteer from each group captured ideas on sticky notes, which were added to a whiteboard. At the end of the session, a volunteer for each group summarized notes from each whiteboard.

Each discussion topic had a specific prompt.

The fears and hopes topic focused on “On Jan 20th, 2025, Donald Trump will begin his second term as President. What are you fearful of with this change? What are you hopeful for?”
The media and civic literacy *prompt was “The news industry, and especially local media outfits, have continued their decline as measured by the number of newspapers, circulation, frequency of publication, employment and readership. More Americans live in news deserts now than in recent years. What might we as civic technologists do to help in countering this trend?*”
When discussing social media impacts, the focus was “Social media platforms have responded to political shifts by removing oversight of content. What can civic technologists do to help address misinformation and hate speech in social media?”
The Chi Hack Night Community discussion was based on the question “What is our community doing well? What could we be doing better? What should we do more of? Who should we hear presentations from?”

Results

The fears and hopes topic resulted in a wide range of fears and hopes related to Trump’s second presidential term.

Among the hopes was the possibility that the new administration would be too inept to enact changes effectively due to inertia or due to fissures within the Republican Party. Participants also hoped that “the farce” would be exposed due to Republican actions. The discussion included several points about hopes for changes to our political discourse, such as changes to the two-party system and less focus on identity. Similarly, participants expressed a hope for a reset after the presidential term.

Fears included war, environmental and economic damage, the breaking up of families, and shortsighted policies that break up families.

The media and civic literacy topic included discussions about the lack of profitability of local news and alternative funding mechanisms, increasing news literacy among consumers of the news, and increasing opportunities for young people to get involved in local journalism.

Participants also posed several questions, such as how universities can help, how we might learn from streaming platform subscription models, and how AI might help gather local news data.

When discussing* *social media impacts, **participants discussed several themes related to the removal of content moderators. Themes included the creation of a civic commons via nationalization, hyper-local social media, ethical media education, or alternative funding sources.

Media literacy came up several times in the discussion, which could result in people limiting their use of social media and having more in-person interactions.

The groups also talked about alternatives to traditional fact checkers, such as community notes, AI fact checkers, or a solution created by Chi Hack Night.

Finally, there was discussion around the **Chi Hack Night community, **both in terms of things that are going well and things that can be improved.

Participants identified Chi Hack night as a well-run volunteer organization that’s adaptable, diverse, long-lived, and local-focused.

Ideas for improvement included more local events, events in different locations, and a focus on providing resources to new breakout groups. Chi Hack Night can also cater more to non-tech folks, provide a clear membership process, and focus on mentoring of young people.

The notes from each discussion topic are available here.

Reflections

January’s community feedback session was a continuation of a multi-year tradition of feedback sessions. The sessions are a reflection of the fact that Chi Hack Night is a community-focused volunteer organization. For example, topics discussed in the sessions inform the goals the Chi Hack Night organization pursues.

For other ways to get involved, consider volunteering and becoming a member.

Chi Hack Night’s Sixth Board Election

Fri, 24 Jan 2025 00:00:00 -0600

Jan, 24 2025 12:00am

On Tuesday, February 18, 2025, Chi Hack Night will hold our sixth annual member meeting and election for our Board of Directors. The Chi Hack Night Board of Directors, composed of 11 members, is responsible for governing our non-profit organization, as well as running our events, managing our website, keeping the books, and doing all the other things needed to make Chi Hack Night happen.

There are a total of five seats up in this election. Three of them will be chosen by Chi Hack Night Members based on popular vote and two will be appointed by the current Board of Directors with majority Membership approval. All of the seats are two-year terms.

Here’s a breakdown of the available seats:

Board seat	Current director	Election status
Elected	Derek Eder	Incumbent is running
Elected	Katie O'Shea	Incumbent is running
Elected	Josh Kalov	Incumbent is running
Appointed	Vien Nguyen	Incumbent is running
Appointed	Adam Hecktman	Incumbent is running

To vote in this election, or to run or be appointed to a Board seat, you must be a Member of Chi Hack Night as of Tuesday, February 11, 2025. If you are not sure of your membership status, you can email membership@chihacknight.org.

Running for the Board

Are you a Member of Chi Hack Night and interested in running for the Board? Great! Here’s what you need to do:

By Tuesday, February 11, 2025
- If unsure, confirm that you (or the person you are nominating) are a Member of Chi Hack Night by reaching out to membership@chihacknight.org
- Fill out the Candidate Nomination Form. You can nominate yourself or someone else. Remember, though, they must be a Member of Chi Hack Night.
By Saturday, February 15, 2025
- Fill out the Candidate Statement Form. Make your case for why you should be part of the Chi Hack Night Board. All candidate statements will be shared out publicly ahead of the election.
On Election Night Tuesday, February 18, 2025
- Be prepared with a 1–2 minute speech to deliver to Members sharing why you are seeking a position on the Board.

What would my responsibilities as a Board member be?

Event Ops
Membership & Volunteers
Communications & Promotion

Yay democracy and long live Chi Hack Night! We’ll see you online for the Board election on Tuesday, February 18, 2025.

Chi Hack Night joins the Alliance of Civic Technologists

Mon, 16 Dec 2024 00:00:00 -0600

Dec, 16 2024 12:00am

The Chi Hack Night Board is proud to share that we have become a member of the Alliance of Civic Technologists (ACT), a national network of volunteer civic technology groups.

ACT is the spiritual successor to Code for America’s Brigade program, which was sunset in 2023. As part of the first 7 inaugural members of ACT, we are excited for the opportunity to have an official relationship with civic technology peer groups and meetups like Civic Tech Atlanta, Beta NYC, Code for Boston, Code for Philly, SF Civic Tech and Code for Dayton.

ACT is modeled as a membership-driven organization, just like Chi Hack Night, with each member group having 2 delegates (and one alternate) that vote on the core activities of the organization and provide direction to their Executive Director, Christopher Whitaker. As a fun aside, Christopher was one of the original organizers of Chi Hack Night and is still based in Chicago-land.

In this time of political and technological uncertainty, strengthening the ties to our peers and kindred spirits is one of the most valuable things we can do. The work we do in Chicago is not performed in a vacuum, and there is much we can learn from groups similar to ours in other cities.

We encourage everyone in the Chi Hack Night community to learn about ACT and its other member groups, and to reach out and participate in their spaces where and when you can. The Chi Hack Night Board and delegates (Sean Watland, Derek Eder and Sneha Jalukar) will continue to share updates, events, projects and initiatives from this growing network of civic technologists, so stay tuned!

Interested in learning more about the ACT? See Christopher Whitaker’s Chi Hack Night presentation from Oct 29, 2024 on Launching the Alliance of Civic Technologists. ACT will also be hosting a Virtual Holiday Mixer this Thursday December 19th, at 8:00 PM CST. You can register for that event here.

More about the Alliance of Civic Technologists

civictechnologists.org

The Alliance of Civic Technology (ACT) is a newly formed organization that will connect volunteer civic technology efforts, in both technology and advocacy, in their local communities. Our initial goal is to ensure the continuity and growth of civic technology volunteer communities across the United States. The network is currently accepting existing organizations and will begin recruiting leaders for new chapters starting in the new year.

Civic technology organizations began with the idea that people want to give back to their local communities by tackling challenges that leverage their unique technical and advocacy skills. Civic technology volunteers joined these organizations to help people where we live. ACT is a decentralized network of civic tech volunteer organizations, providing opportunities to connect, strategize, and grow.

ACT is itself a community, one that builds with the communities we serve. As civic technologists, we go where the work is, talking with users and understanding their needs. The people we serve are our partners in this work. We forge friendships and learn from them as we share our skills and support their work.

We advocate for changes in, both, technology and policies that enable more effective and equitable delivery of services to the people who rely on them. We will champion solutions that support the civil rights of our neighbors, as well as to call out those that would endanger them. As technologists working at a local level while also having a national perspective, we aim to join coalitions pushing for progressive policies at every level of government.

Currently, ACT has 8 members with additional cities expected to join before the new year including Austin and Orlando. We will continue to recruit initial member organizations, with our first meeting in June. Leaders of local civic technology organizations interested in participating should reach out to ACT leadership via at hello(at)civictechnologists.org

Chi Hack Night | 2024-2025 Goals

Thu, 22 Aug 2024 00:00:00 -0500

Aug, 22 2024 12:00am

On June 1st, 2024, the Board of Directors held our second in-person board retreat! This retreat served as an excellent opportunity for the 10 Board of Directors to have more focused discussions around what membership means at Chi Hack Night, plan our upcoming OKRs for the year, and enjoy copious amounts of bagels & coffee.

Our retreat was held from 10 am until 3 pm, downtown Chicago at dscout corporate headquarters. (Thank you dscout for graciously hosting us for the day!)

Through our discussions, the board identified three primary goals for the upcoming year:

Continuing to run a high quality civic tech event
Expand the broader awareness of Chi Hack Night
How might we use this broader awareness to bring in more financial support for Chi Hack Night

For the third year, we’ve used an OKR framework to plan and measure our goals. OKRs (short for Objective & Key Results) help us know:

What are our important focus areas - the Objectives
How do we know we’ve succeeded - the Key Results

If you are curious to learn more about OKRs and how they work, here’s an article that shares more about how they work.

While you’ll see and hear more about the specifics as we work on these throughout the year, we wanted to share these out now so that our wider community can see what we’re planning to focus on in the coming months.

2024-2025 OKRs

from 7/1/24 - 6/30/25

Objective 1 - Run the event

Produce a live, weekly civic engagement event that meaningfully includes diverse speakers and attendees

KR 1 - 80% of events have details published to web & Eventbrite at least 2 weeks in advance
KR 2 - Book at least 3 presentations from each of the following groups: government, journalism, academia, nonprofit, and advocacy
KR 3 - Ensure that the composition of presenters is at least 60% persons underrepresented in tech, including BIPOC, women and gender minorities

Objective 2 - Grow the value of Membership & Volunteering

KR 1 - More than 10% of volunteer roles available (non-board required) are filled by non-board attendees
KR 2 - Grow the total number of members by 10%
KR 3 - Have 4 non Hack Night events (1 member meeting and 3 social events)

Objective 3 - Increase Chi Hack Night Awareness to drive Engagement and Support

KR 1 - Increase Net Monthly LinkedIn Followers Gained by 33%
KR 2 - Increase Eventbrite RSVPs by 12%
KR 3 - Increase All Attendance by 20%

Wrapping Up our 2023-2024 OKRs

Before signing off for this post, we also wanted to report out on how we did on our previous year’s OKRs. I am quite proud of the work our Board & other volunteers did for Chi Hack Night this year. It’s truly a team effort and none of this could have been possible without all of us.

As for our OKRs, we did a bang up job making some serious strides this year! In short, we achieved 6 KRs, nearly achieved 2 KRs, and missed on only 1 KR.

If you’re curious to learn more, below is a breakdown of how we did for our previous year’s OKRs.

Objective 1 - Run the event

Produce a live, weekly civic engagement event that meaningfully includes diverse speakers and attendees

ACHIEVED Key Result 1.1: Create a biannual survey for Chi Hack Night community asking people about belonging / welcomingness of events & quality and representativeness of presenters

ACHIEVED Key Result 1.2: Book at least three presentations from each of the following groups: government, journalism, academia, nonprofit, and advocacy

ACHIEVED Key Result 1.3: 65% or higher response rate from presenters on our demographic survey

Objective 2 - Sustain the event

Build & maintain a sustainable infrastructure for weekly operations engaging volunteers and expanding our organization’s capacity

MISSED Key Result 2.1: 20% of volunteer roles available are filled by members (either current or future members)

ACHIEVED Key Result 2.2: Have 4 non Hack Night Meetings (1 member meeting and 3 social events)

ACHIEVED Key Result 2.3: 70% of members are satisfied with our membership requirements

Objective 3 - Promote the event

Promote and share Chi Hack Night presentations, events, and projects to a wider audience

JUST MISSED Key Result 3.1: Grow number of monthly sessions on our website year over year by 5%

JUST MISSED Key Result 3.2: Grow hours watched on YouTube by 5%

ACHIEVED Key Result 3.3: Grow LinkedIn followers by 10%

If you have more interest in learning more about how Chi Hack Night operates or would like to help - please reach out to me or any one else on our Board.

Our COVID-19 Policy

Mon, 11 Mar 2024 00:00:00 -0500

Mar, 11 2024 12:00am

Updated March 11, 2024

Current Policy

In our previous policies, the Board of Chi Hack Night stated that we would adjust our policies based on what we deemed necessary to have safe events. Based on recent local trends of COVID-19 cases, the Board has decided that we will no longer require masks for our attendees - effective on March 19th, 2024.

While the Board believes it is no longer necessary to require masking for all attendees to have a safe event, we still firmly believe that masking is a personal choice. We ask all of our attendees to respect the wishes of other attendees on their choices to wear masks or not - following value #2 in our Code of Conduct.

The Board of Directors will continue monitoring the Local Hospital Admission Levels - the recommended metric to watch by the Chicago Department of Public Health. As of March 11 2024, we are currently in low admission level. If this metric rises to the medium or high admission levels, the Board will reevaluate whether our current policy needs any revisions.

Chi Hack Night is a volunteer and community effort. While our Board of Directors is responsible for communicating and enforcing these policies, volunteers and breakout group leaders also share this responsibility in their roles. We ask that Members and regular attendees also help with normalizing these behaviors, but ask that they refrain from any confrontation or enforcement and report any issues to an available Board member or email info@chihacknight.org.

With your continued support we can continue to ensure safe in-person Chi Hack Nights!

Previous Policy Updates

Below is an archive of our previous policies and when they were enacted.

Updated Policy - June 2023

As stated in our initial policy below, the Board considers updates to our COVID-19 policy when we feel it appropriate. As of June 2023, we have made the decision to drop proof of vaccination as a requirement for our In Person events.

We continue asking that all attendees wear a mask while attending our In Person Events.

As always, we appreciate the commitment of all our attendees who help contribute to a welcoming and safe environment for all. If the board deems it appropriate to make further changes to our COVID-19 policy, we will update this policy and notify our community.

Initial Policy - September 2022

At Chi Hack Night we continue to believe in the importance of hosting in-person events particularly in a time where meaningful social life is so vital, but we must work together to do so safely. We recognize our civic responsibility of standing in solidarity with marginalized communities, particularly as they have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. As such, we have created a policy for protecting our community from COVID-19.

Ventilation and masking have been consistently demonstrated to be effective mitigation strategies particularly when coupled with vaccination. We take these measures to make sure everyone feels safe and welcome in an already stressful time. We appreciate the fact that some people have unique home or health circumstances that require them to take precaution measures.

This includes people with underlying health conditions for whom the risks of infection can be particularly outsized. It also includes people caring for loved ones with health conditions. We also acknowledge a range of additional personal and home circumstances that might require people to take additional precautions; we stand in solidarity with all our fellow Chicagoans.

To protect our community from COVID-19 during in-person events, we will:

Require proof of vaccination to attend in-person (vaccination card)
Open windows to provide additional ventilation (weather/temperature permitting)
Require proper masking unless actively eating, drinking, or presenting
- Friendly, respectful, understanding but consistent reminders and enforcement of our masking policy
- Clear eating area designation
Monitor transmission trends and variants consistent with CDC, City, and County guidance
Seek input from our membership and attendees
Respect people’s preferences and boundaries, striving to be open and responsive to our communities’ expressed needs, preferences and requests for accommodation
Provide clear and consistent communication including
- Announcements
- Blog posts
- Slack reminders
- Social media