Derek Eder

Civic Tech Builder

I use data, build tools, and organize people in Chicago to democratize power. Read more »

DataMade
Founder and Partner

Chi Hack Night
Co-Founder and President Emeritus

Wanna talk? Email or message me on mastodon.

Hi, I'm Derek Eder. I'm an entrepreneur, developer and one of the leaders of the civic technology community in Chicago. During the day, I run DataMade, a civic technology company. We build open source technology using data to empower journalists, researchers, governments and advocacy organizations.

I am Co-Founder and President Emeritus of Chi Hack Night, Chicago's weekly event to build, share, and learn about civic technology. Read my full bio »

Blog more »

Electrifying Our Old Oak Park Home: Going Solar

Published on Nov 1, 2022
We are in the process of electrifying our Oak Park home and completely eliminating all our household emissions. This post is an attempt to document our process as we go, with the hopes that it will inspire our neighbors to do the same and learn from our efforts.

Talks Public appearances and presentations | more »

Introducing Decarb My State

As part of our 500th Chi Hack Night on July 12, 2022, Derek Eder gave a lightning talk debuting DecarbMyState.com, a new website to galvanize action on climate change through clean electrification.

Intro to being anti-racist in civic tech

What does it mean to be anti-racist? What is white supremacy culture and how does it show up? Over the past months, Chi Hack Night’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) committee has discussed and researched these questions. I am joined by fellow Chi Hack Night Board Members Ryan Spencer and Samantha Evans to share what we learned in our blog post so that we can all work to make our communities more equitable and just.

How Chicago ‘Hacktivist’ Derek Eder Uses Public Data for Good

WTTW Chicago Tonight interview I did with Phil Ponce on Chi Hack Night, DataMade, and the work done by the Chicago civic technology community in the last 5 years. We discussed some more recent projects including Chicagos Million Dollar Blocks and Justice Divided.

When Technology and Policy Work Together: Large Lots in Chicago

Demond Drummer and I share the story of how community organizers, technologists, and the City of Chicago collaborated to roll out a new program to give local residents ownership of vacant land in their neighborhood and incentivize neighborhood-level investment.

Projects Civic tech projects I've built or collaborated on | more »

Decarb My State
https://decarbmystate.com

With volunteers at Chi Hack Night, we pulled together emissions and electrification data for all 50 states + DC and organize it based on the biggest sources of climate pollution: the machines we use to heat our homes, cook our food, get us places, and produce our power. We count and name every coal, gas and oil plant that needs to close, track how many of our buildings and cars have been electrified, and how much wind and solar has been built.