Hack the Beach 2017 Contest Sign-up
Aug 23, 2017
submission
#51
Submit your idea
Your idea/ technology/ company
| Name of your idea or project | The Burg |
| Which challenge area does your idea respond to? | Building Community, A Responsive Government |
| Describe your idea and how it can help Santa Monica | The Burg is the community's platform, a digital public square that streamlines local representatives and local news to verified voters. By building a Burg for each community and hosting unique features such as online town halls, we're giving people a new way to engage with their local government. The citizens of Santa Monica already enjoy many elements of a thriving community; The Burg will only improve this in the arena of civic engagement. Santa Monica needs a digital public square: an easily accessible place for local civic engagement where people that live together and vote together can finally get on the same page, together. |
| What stage is your idea or project in? | Prototype / MVP built |
| What needs to happen to launch your product? Please list all resources (hardware, software, licensing, legal/regulatory, funding, partnership or support from the City, data, etc.) required to launch your program. | We are currently bootstrapping and slated for launch in the Greater Los Angeles Area in October (2017). We will be running our private beta testing next month, and are working hard on the development end. We are a small team that could use all the help possible to promote The Burg to citizens and partner with local representatives and local news to push their content to the people they serve. Our goal is to launch and then shortly afterwards raise a round of funding, perhaps through incubators like Amplify and YC, and then hire a team of community organizers so we can properly build out the “community’s platform.” |
| How realistic is it for your idea to be implemented by early 2018? Please describe what resources (if any) you will need in order to ensure a working product by early next year. | Due to our team’s versatility and skill set, we will be launching this year in October. We raised a small family and friends round to help us develop The Burg, and then we competed in and won the Civic Tech Pitch Competition at the 85th Annual U.S. Conference of Mayors in June. The prize money, connections, and encouragement from hundreds of mayors have put us in a great position to launch well before 2018. |
You and your team
| Team Name | The Burg Team |
| List team members and their roles | --- |
| Contact email | --- |
| Phone number | --- |
| Primary Contact Name | --- |
Initial application scoring
Scoring
| Viability (40%) | --- |
| Value (40%) | --- |
| Growth (20%) | --- |
| Notes | --- |
| Advance to semi-finalist status? | Yes |