We built a model of Santa Ana and this is what we learned

Hack for Health: Pitchfest

Community members gathered to create ideas for an app that make Orange County healthier.

Hack for Health: Pitchfest kicked off our civic hack project to make Orange County healthier at the Santa Ana Public Library TeenSpace. This civic engagement hack intended to get inspire more connections and collaboration around better health outcomes for our city. ​

We dove right into this project, creating a model of the city to help attendees identify barriers to health and how they can overcome them.

Different types of people attended the event: those interested in health, community engagement, family, youth, technology and great conversations were had.

​We built a giant model of the city together. First we laid the streets, then the parks and schools, landmarks, In-N-outs, churches, businesses, and houses. Even the freeway and the Discovery Cube and homeless encampment sites made it into the model.

​Each attendee filled in the details of their specific neighborhood: where gas stations, apartments, retailers like Target and other important places were.

​After the map was pretty filled-in, we could make observations about what makes us healthier. Ideas beyond the landscape were mapped from our community knowledge including where the homeless encampments are.

Pitch teams took their ideas to pen and paper and drew out their concepts.

The Pitch teams recorded their ideas for judges to pick the best ideas to be built at Hack for Health: Hack-a-thon. The videos were shot by City of Santa Ana Parks, Recreation, and Public Libraryvolunteers who are trained in media production

A TeenSpace Coordinator, Nelson, cut the pitch videos together on the fly to make the Pitch teams look great. He helped produce the whole event as the Library liasion.

Dino Perez and Ryan Smolar will take the best ideas to a panel of Judges to decide which one will be built at the Hack for Health: Hack-a-thon. Stay tuned!

Thanks for everything! We had an amazing time! Check out the pitch ideas that emerged here:  6 App Ideas for OC: which do you want built?

Special Thanks to Helpers & Supporters

Special thanks to Nelson Alonso, Cheryl Andrea, Cat Torres, Saidy Valdez and all the amazing team and friends of TeenSpace, Child Creativity Lab for helping us with supplies for our model of Santa Ana, OC Burrito Project for keeping us well-fed, Dino Perez for co-piloting the ship with great ideas and energy and our partners at Alliance for a Healthy Orange County and OC PICH!

Story by Ryan Smolar