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: 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: 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 »

UIC Urban Forum: Can Data Deliver?

I was invited to give the keynote presentation at the 2023 UIC Urban Forum. I focused my talk on the successful examples I’ve seen of civic technology and strategies in hiring and procurement within government. Presentation slides

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 »