aliklemencic/voter-education-engagement-platform

API to support an application that promotes civic engagement.

Voter Education Engagement Platform (VEEP)

Winner of the 2022 UChicago Institute of Politics TechTeam Ideathon

Overview

VEEP started in 2021 as an application to help civic-minded individuals educate themselves on their state, local, and national representatives and legislators and encourage users to engage with and take civic action on topics they care about. This repo was created during the 2022 UChicago Institute of Politics TechTeam Ideathon, during which the team spent an entire weeking diving into the project.

Upon winning the Ideathon and receiving a grant from the Institute of Politics, the project was renamed to IssueHub and found a home on issuehub.us in late 2022. With an inital focus on climate change, the website encorporated work done during the Ideathon as well as new ideas.

Through partnership with the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, the team conducted extensive customer research and shifted the project to meet the needs they discovered. Renamed CommunAlly, the project now aims to help users find personalized volunteer opportunities that match their preferences, building a community of like-minded individuals.

Data Sources

This project utilizes legislator data from the League of Conservation Voters, U.S. Senate website, and U.S. House of Representatives website; legislature data from Open States and Councilmatic; and personal research on volunteer opportunities.

The dash_example folder contains example Dash code from a previous project for use as a template if exploring a Dash end product.