Derek Eder

Civic Tech Builder


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 »


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Electrifying Our Old Oak Park Home #3: Appliances

Electrifying Our Old Oak Park Home #3: Appliances

Published on Aug 22, 2023
We’ve made the switch to being fully electric in our 100-year-old home! I’ll explain the final steps we took to electrify our home by replacing our stove, hot water heater, clothes dryer and car with electric equivalents. These upgrades allowed us to fully cut our gas usage and eliminate the last ~20% of emissions from our home.



Electrifying Our Old Oak Park Home #2: Heat Pumps

Electrifying Our Old Oak Park Home #2: Heat Pumps

Published on May 6, 2023
We’ve made the switch from gas heating to heat pumps in our 100 year old home, and you can too. We’ll explain how we took a big step in fighting climate change while also lowering our utility bills and increasing the comfort of our home in the process.



Electrifying Our Old Oak Park Home #1: Going Solar

Electrifying Our Old Oak Park Home #1: 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 »


How to Fully Electrify Your Home

I was interviewed by the Village of Oak Park on our fully electrified home and showed off our heat pumps, induction stove, hot water heater, solar panels and electric car charger.


Introducing Decarb My State

As part of our 500th Chi Hack Night on July 12, 2022, I gave a lightning talk debuting DecarbMyState.com, a new website that shows where emissions come from in each state 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.



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


Illinois Solar Map
https://ilsolarmap.com

As of May 2023, 1,622,000 kilowatts of operating solar capacity have been installed in the State of Illinois thanks to the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act (CEJA). The Illinois Solar Map allows you to explore solar projects by Census Tract, Place, County, and State Congressional Districts, as well as by category of project.


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.


Searchable Map Template - CSV
https://github.com/datamade/searchable-map-template-turf

Put your data on a searchable, filterable map. This is a free, open source tool and template powered by javascript in the browser using Leaflet and Turf.js.


2nd City Zoning
https://secondcityzoning.org

To make Chicago’s zoning code digestible by humans, we took inspiration from one of our favorite games: Sim City 2000. Find out how your building is zoned, learn where to locate your business and explore zoning patterns throughout the city.


Chicago Councilmatic
https://chicago.councilmatic.org

Are you curious about what legislation the Chicago City Council has been passing? Search, browse, subscribe and comment on everything the City Council has done since 2010.


@derekederderek@derekeder.com • © 2023 Derek Eder