Last Saturday, Councilman Bill Peduto served as a judge for The Waffle Shop’s Visionary Ideas for this World or Another Event.

The event asked for submissions of visionary ideas for the future, and asked participants for extravagant proposals such as “visionary schemes for things like: how to survive the end of the planet, a way for animals to run governments, a cloning system that reinvents history, or an entire alternate universe of your own design.”

Ten participants were selected from the submissions to pitch their idea in a short presentation to the judges and the audience.  Participants could be local, national or even international, and could pitch their ideas to the judges in person, or using a “body double” that connected with the participants via Skype and spoke on their behalf.

The winning submission came from Vanessa German, with her presentation on “The Power of Imagination.”  Follow the links to read more about the event in The Tartan, and learn more about The Waffle Shop.

iBurgh has gotten a lot of attention for Pittsburgh, and the potential of creating an E-Democracy movement right here. The principle of E-Democracy  is based on the belief that technology like mobile applications, web-based social media, and electronic two-way communication, can be utilized to empower people to have more say in their government.  

The benefits for Pittsburgh are two-fold.  First, greater public participation means greater transparency and accountability as people take a greater role in their government.  Second, the technology produced can be exported from anywhere – Pittsburgh has the talent to build the industry here.  Unlike cable tv or phone complaint centers, the initial iBurgh application will be updated to become a two-way mobile communication between government and it’s citizens.  With the addition in the next few months of web-based data resources, embedded webcast council meetings, and initiatives to include both community organizations and the city’s tech firms, Pittsburgh will take a worldwide leadership role in this emerging industry.
 

The launch of iBurgh this week has received a lot of attention, and reports from all across the country and world are putting Pittsburgh in the spotlight.  Some of the articles from outside Pittsburgh include:
 

• Engadget - iBurgh complaint department for iPhone gets to the heart of city living
• Torontoist.com -  Pittsburgh and the Enviable iPhone App
• Boston Herald – Pittsburgh’s iPhone Complaint Feature Debuts
• Revolution Magazine – Need a Pothole Filled? There’s an App for That 
• The Apple Blog –  The iPhone Set to Do It’s Civic Duty with iBurgh
• Public CEO – New Technology Gives Residents a New Way to Complain to Local Government
• TMCnet – iBurgh Lets You Complain to City by Cell Phone
• Gadgetek –  iBurgh Complaint Department for iPhone Gets to the Heart of City Living

On Monday, Councilman Bill Peduto and YinzCam Inc. launched iBurgh, an iPhone application for the City of Pittsburgh.  This iPhone application allows users to take a picture of any 311 complaint they might have, such as a pothole, and send it directly to Pittsburgh’s 311 line from their iPhone.  

The launch of this iPhone application is just one more example of Pittsburgh’s emergence as a leader in the world of e-democracy.  
 

• Fall 2008 – Washington DC Launches “Apps for Democracy” Contest to Create iPhone and Facebook Apps
• June 2009 – San Francisco Announces a 311 Twitter Account
• June 2009 – New York City Announces a 311 Twitter Account
• July 2009- Washington DC Announces 2^nd Round of “Apps for Democracy”
• July 2009- NYC Announces “Big Apps” Competition Modeled After DC Contest
• July 2009 – Boston Mayor Announces Plans to Create Boston 311 iPhone App
• August 17, 2009 – Pittsburgh Becomes First Major City in America to Launch 311 iPhone App 

The use of social media as a mode of government/constituent communication is emerging as a very valuable tool.  The number of users, and younger generations of voters in particular, and  that can be reached through these outlets continues to grow at astounding rates.  Facebook added 100,000,000 users in less than 9 months, and 96% of Generation Y are regular users of social media.  Compared to other communication outlets:

• It took radio 38 years to get 50,000,000 listeners
• It took television 13 years to hit 50,000,000 viewers
• It only took 4 years for 50,000,000 people to visit the internet

Social media facts:

• If Facebook were a country, it would be the 4th largest in the world
• There are over 200,000,000 blogs
• iPod applications hit he 1,000,000,000 mark in just 9 months
• Youtube has over 100,000,000 videos and Wikipedia has over 13,000,000 articles

iBurgh is just the first initiative in establishing e-democracy programs – 3 more are scheduled to be released this year.  iBurgh will continue to expand to all platforms and all phones, following the YinzCam business model.  These e-democracy programs will become even more interactive, and updates will include ways for citizens to receive notices from government about issues or places they care about, among other things.

To learn more about YinzCam Inc. and iBurgh, check out this slide presentation by the President of YinzCam Inc., Priya Narasimhan.

Today, Councilman Bill Peduto will announce the release of iBurgh, a new iPhone application that will work to improve government response to constituent services, such as snow removal and fixing potholes. Councilman Peduto and the local company YinzCam Inc. have worked together to make this launch possible today.

This application will allow constituents to use their iPhone to take a picture of a pothole, or other concern, and instantly submit a picture and location along with the complaint to the city’s 311 system.

Pittsburgh is the first major city in the county to utilize this type of government integrated iPhone application.

Check out this short clip from a keynote address “Going Green Makes Economic Sense,” given by David Gottfried at Stanford University.  David Gottfried is the founder of the U.S. Green Building Council.  Gottfried discusses how green building is being linked to the bottom line. He says that bankers and Wall Street will eventually begin to demand green certification standards because of the value of investments in green building.

At the City Council Public Hearing yesterday afternoon, Councilman Bill Peduto once again spoke out for a revised economic development policy for the City of Pittsburgh.

“It is essential that subsidies that this government gives out for development do not simply go into the pockets of out-of-town developers, but benefit the entire community,” said Councilman Peduto.

With over $1 billion dollars of development in his district throughout the past 8 years, Councilman Peduto has worked to ensure that all of these developments have created good paying jobs, generated new tax revenue for the City, and catalyzed other neighborhood development.  

Now he is calling for the same triple bottom line development to be enforced throughout the City of Pittsburgh, which would ensure that any new development would:

• maximized economic impact
• minimized environmental impact and improvement of the surrounding neighborhood
• provided the opportunity for good jobs for all residents

“Each and every development proposal in the City of Pittsburgh should meet the triple bottom line or else you must question whether or not this is true economic development that benefits the City or simply real estate development that benefits a select few.”

On Tuesday, Pittsburgh City Council gave unanimous final support to a bill that will help encourage more green building within the city.

The new amendment to the city building code states that any project that receives aid in the form of TIF (tax-increment financing) subsidies, will have to ultimately meet the LEED silver rating standards.  Projects that utilize this subsidy and do not obtain the LEED silver rating will be fined in the amount of 1% of the construction costs of the project.  Building projects that are 10,000 sq. feet or greater, or whose cost exceeds more than $2 million dollars will be subject to this amendment, along with any renovations to city-owned buildings totaling more than $2 million dollars.

The Green Building Alliance, who worked closely with Councilman Bill Peduto on this amendment, praised it’s passage yesterday.  Executive director Holly Childs said, “It is exciting to see the City of Pittsburgh moving forward to protect our natural environment and the health and safety of City residents and workers.  We are very pleased with today’s vote and will work with Councilman Peduto and Pittsburgh City Council to pass legislation that incentivizes and promotes green building.”  
To read more from the Green Building Alliance about the passage of the amendment, visit the press release here.

The Pittsburgh Post Gazette also praised this legislation in an editorial yesterday.  The editorial commends the amendment’s insistence on using the LEED certification standards for building, as opposed to a similar bill that recently received overwhelming support in the state House in Harrisburg.  The editorial also praises the long-term savings that such environmental standards create, by creating buildings that use less energy and natural resources.

Read the Post Gazette editorial here.

Tomorrow, City Council will vote to give final approval to legislation that would ultimately lead to the construction of more green buildings within the City of Pittsburgh.

The legislation, authored by Councilman Bill Peduto, would require that any developers who use city TIF (tax-increment financing) subsidies achieve at least a LEED silver rating for that building project.  If the subsidy is used by the developer, and LEED silver rating not sought for the building, that developer will be fined in the amount of 1% of the construction costs.  Any buildings constructed by the city would also be required to achieve this environmental standard, if they are larger than 5,000 square feet or cost more than $2 million dollars.

Prior to authoring this legislation, Councilman Peduto wrote the city’s first green building ordinance, and was the co-founder and co-chair of the city’s climate action plan.  He also authored the Hillside Preservation Act.  When it comes to creating innovative green policies, and fighting to protect our environment, no one can match Councilman Peduto’s record in city government.

View the legislation here.

Today, Pittsburgh City Council gave final approval to Councilman Bill Peduto’s legislation to create the Stimulus Oversight and Reinvestment in New Growth (SOARING) Commission.  This commission will oversee the spending of money that Pittsburgh will receive from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

If you are interested in becoming a part of this committee, you can apply online starting today!

Apply Online 

At 1pm today, Councilman Bill Peduto will be holding a press conference before a special session of City Council on the use of technology to advance democracy.  Technology and new media, such as a government iPhone application, live streaming of government meetings online, and deliberative polling and instant feedback by constituents during government meetings, can be used to bring the residents of Pittsburgh into the democratic process in more ways than ever before.

Today’s special session, beginning at 1:30pm, will focus on discussions by leading experts in the new media and technology fields on these topics and more, including:

• Dr. Priya Narasimhan- Carnegie Mellon University, creator of YinzCam technology
• Paul Fireman – Vivo
• Brad Winney – Panopto, Inc.
• Jay Resio – MyGov365

To watch a live streaming of this meeting online, beginning at 1:30pm today – click here – and then select “View Live” underneath the section E Democracy.