When it comes to getting to after school and summer programs, there is a safety element Chicago teens have to consider, said Robert Friedman, portfolio strategist at Hive Chicago, a network of education organizations focused on connected learning.
"It can be daunting for a young person to navigate transportation," he said, whether that be through a neighborhood they heard isn't safe, or a bus or train line they aren't comfortable using.
With that in mind, Hive has been working since January to create a solution that can address issues of transportation for students who need to get to after school and summer programs in Chicago. The initial stage of that solution is RideW/Me, an app that connects students to events, lets them know if others from their school are attending, and alerts program providers when students will arrive.
On the student side, the app helps motivate students to go to after school and summer events because they know someone else from their area is going the same way, said Friedman. On the program provider side, it could bring more students to programs and keep closer tabs on students' locations (addressing attendance issues, as well as safety issues).
"Sometimes it doesn't matter who is going but just that other people are going," said Friedman. [RideW/Me] is not just to coordinate their travel, but motivate them to go."
The app, which is still in minimum viable product stage, will direct students to events and programs that are provided by Hive's network of member organizations, including the Chicago Botanic Garden, Adler Planetarium and the Chicago Parks District, and are made available through Chicago City of Learning. Once students find an event they are interested in, they sign up to go, and can see if other students from their school are attending. The app then gives them a route, based off Google Maps. Students also report whether they are leaving an area early, on time, or late, allowing students to meet up for transportation, and program providers to know that they are on their way.
Friedman said the app was created through an "evolving partnership between youth and adults." The team that helped bring the app together include college students from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Case Western, developers who connected with Hive at monthly hackathons, high school students working through a Chicago Botanic Gardens program, and a half dozen educators from around the Chicago area (the version as it is now was created over a three day hackathon this weekend).
RideW/Me app helping kids get to learning programs and events across #Chicago. Building a peer groups #cnturbanapps pic.twitter.com/zbpVsuCNJp
— CNT (@CNT_tweets) June 7, 2015 RideW/Me is part of a focus by Hive on issues around education. Transportation is one of the key elements to getting kids to quality resources they have found, so they have launched a series tech and data-based solutions around this issue. Other initiatives include collecting audio that documents the struggles teens face with transportation, data visualization of teens' transit routes through the city, and a social media project looking at safe routes for bikers and skaters.
"The idea is to take these big lofty ideas down to products you can test in a day," said Friedman.
