CyclePhilly wins Code for America Technology Award

CyclePhilly, the app that tracks your bike rides, was one of 12 inaugural winners of the Code for America Technology Award. The awards celebrate innovations in civic technology.
The winners, chosen from a pool of 150 applicants, accepted their awards at the Code for America Summit in Oakland on Wednesday.
CyclePhilly was the only winner from Philadelphia, though Philly’s presence at the summit is not to be understated: nearly a dozen Philadelphians are speaking, like Code for Philly leaders Dawn McDougall and Chris Alfano and city staffers like Lauren Ancona and Aaron Ogle. Plus: city developer Mjumbe Poe’s civic app Councilmatic found new life at the summit.

The win comes as CyclePhilly expands to Knoxville, Tenn., and Dusseldorf, Germany.
The team behind CyclePhilly — civic hackers Kathryn Killebrew, Corey Acri and Lloyd Emelle — all traveled to Oakland to accept the award.
“Our work with CyclePhilly serves as a perfect example of what is possible when the community of cyclists joins forces with the open-source community to improve and enhance one of the best transportation tools in human history,” Emelle said in his acceptance speech.
One thing that was unique about this civic app was its partnership with the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, which uses CyclePhilly’s data in its planning efforts. The CyclePhilly team also notably orchestrated marketing pushes, including ordering T-shirts and stickers and designing display ads.
The app was cofounder Acri’s entry point into the civic hacking scene.
It’s a nice bit of national recognition for app and Philly’s bustling civic hacking scene. CyclePhilly was one of three winners that came out of local Code for America Brigades (the other was Code for Boston’s MBTA Ninja, which Code for Philly recreated for SEPTA). Other winners included GitHub and SeeClickFix.
See a full list of winners here.