Dear Community,
We pressed ‘pause’, took a step back and evaluated our approaches and processes. We weren’t making timely progress and we were determined to understand why. We recognized significant scope creep which deviated from our original proposal. As a result of these honest evaluations, we were able to re-center ourselves and our project around its original value proposition — open source projects can and should be completed within a limited time frame, for free.
We leveraged Lafayette’s technology talent base by connecting with them via Slack (a short form communication platform similar to AOL Instant Messenger, but WAY cooler and more robust). After joining the Acadiana Software Group’s Slack team, we were able to directly connect with tech talent interested in open source community projects, like ours. Interested participants have been able to replicate the original code for “Adopt A” GitHub page. The platform is 80% developed and will be ready for public testing by the end of the first quarter in 2021. If you want to help us with testing the functionality of the platform, like us on Facebook. We’ll be updating our followers on that social media platform.
A major barrier throughout 2020 was obtaining access to data from LCG. We were unable to obtain a full dataset of storm drain locations (due to undefined security concerns from LCG), but we were able to get our hands on location data for two distinct pilot zone areas. Those areas can be viewed on this google map (https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1PY-A3iJqsjyTcXI3bKiAkULxXRjCIOfh&usp=sharing). We hope that, in time, a full dataset will be shared with our team. If other places are able and willing to share this public information, then we believe it can, and should, be publicly available and accessible in Lafayette, LA.
Our 24HCP funding is dedicated to marketing and communications. As such, we’re partnering with University of Louisiana at Lafayette Sales and Marketing students on an Experiential Learning class project where students will develop and execute a marketing plan. They’ll also be responsible for providing a performance evaluation report on how their plan succeeded or failed. Metrics of success will include a 75% adoption rate within the two pilot zone areas, increased social media engagement, and increased public awareness and demand for open data projects across Lafayette.
Thanks,
Katy Dupre
Adopt A Storm Drain Team Leader