http://dailyorange.

com/2018/02/mayor-forms-partnerships-syracuse-university-speaks-le-moyne-college/

Mayor forms partnerships with Syracuse University, speaks at Le Moyne CollegeSince his inauguration in
January, Mayor Ben Walsh has announced multiple partnerships with local colleges, including schools at
Syracuse University, in an effort to collect economic development ideas.He has also spoken at SU and Le
Moyne College for other events, and several members of his administration and transition team were
connected to local colleges — including the president of Le Moyne, who served on his transition team.
David Van Slyke, dean of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, was also a transition team
ember.One of the major college-involved initiatives that Walsh has announced is a planned Fiscal Summit
in collaboration with Maxwell. Walsh first detailed the summit during his public inauguration
ceremony.“We will convene our city’s anchor institutions, business leaders, the banking community, as
well as county, state and national leaders,” Walsh said at the time. “We’ll find new ways to improve
efficiency and service delivery, and work with our partners to address the deep structural issues that
underlie the city’s revolving deficits.”No date has been set for that summit. The mayor graduated in 2005
from Maxwell with a master’s degree in public administration.Syracuse’s projected budget deficit for the
2017-18 fiscal year is $16.5 million, finance records show. Projections also show that Syracuse’s reserve
funds could be exhausted within two years, Walsh said during his “state of the city” speech.The city has
also announced a partnership with SU’s School of Information Studies and AT&T to launch a civic
“hackathon,” in which residents have the ability to brainstorm ideas to help Syracuse improve its snow
removal policies.“It starts with us. We’re excited to involve our community in not just the enforcement, but
in the long-term solutions needed to improve the way we handle snow,” Walsh said in a university press
release. “A better snow plan can improve commuting, safety, and pride in our city.”Cash prizes for the
hackathon are $3,500, $2,000 and $1,500 for winners of the competition. Project ideas are due by
Thursday. The winners will be announced next week.“Our faculty and students are deeply engaged in
using data to address a wide range of issues, including the use of data for civic good. I am looking
forward to seeing the solutions that all of the teams propose,” said Elizabeth Liddy, dean of SU’s
iSchool.Walsh also delivered Le Moyne College’s 2018 Madden Lecture at the start of the month, and
many members of his administration haves ties to both SU and Le Moyne. Walsh, for example, in
December appointed the head of the city corporation counsel office, Frank Price, who previously served
as a past board member of the Le Moyne College Board of Regents.Price, who received a law degree
from SU’s College of Law, recently announced he would be stepping down from his new position,
according to Syracuse.com, but Walsh has already announced that Kristen Smith will fill his
place.Christine Elliott, who was appointed as City Hall’s director of administration, holds a master’s in
public administration degree from SU. Corey Driscoll Dunham, who was appointed as Walsh’s director of
operations, formerly worked in intergovernmental affairs at SU, according to Syracuse.com.Director of
City Initiatives Greg Loh, a top official in the administration, holds a bachelor’s degree from SU in political
science and public relations.Members of the Walsh transition team were also connected to universities in
Syracuse. Le Moyne College President Linda LeMura was one of the leading members of the team, and
Van Slyke was a member of the transition team that specifically analyzed Syracuse’s finances.

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https://articles.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2018/03/hackathon_for_snow_infrastructure.amp

Winners event 3-7

Mayor Ben Walsh F B post

https://www.facebook.com/Syracuse1848/photos/a.629593890417366.1073741872.131428370233923
/1760919623951448/?type=3

Spectrum
http://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/central-ny/news/2018/03/08/syracuse-university-plowing-through-the-
data-hackathon

no mention

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WSYR TV no mention

http://www.localsyr.com/news/local-news/syracuse-reviews-civic-ideas-for-improving-city-snow-
removal/1017918489

Post Standard with AT&T mention

3-7

https://articles.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2018/03/syracuse_university_civic_hackathon_winners_ann
ounced.amp

‘Solutions for snow removal and plow performance in the snowiest city in Upstate New York got some
high-tech help this winter.

AT&T, Syracuse University's iSchool and the City of Syracuse announced the winners of the second
annual civic hackathon at a ceremony attended by Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh at the School of
Information Studies (iSchool) on Wednesday.

Over 90 participants across 36 teams competed in the contest, called " The Civic Hackathon: Plowing
Through the Data," where they used data sets from Syracuse's fleet of snowplows to brainstorm ideas on
how to solve snow removal problems in the city.

Camillus resident Dean Olin and Alex Sinfarosa of Ithaca, New York, took first place and the $3500 prize
for their project, which enables the City of Syracuse to see where roads have been plowed and keep
track of when the roads were last plowed.

Michael Phillips, who came in second, received $2,000 for his project, which allows community members
to see which roads have been plowed and when. Phillips is a graduate student studying Computational
Linguistics at Syracuse University.

Suchitra Deekshitula, Anish Nair, Ashmin Swain, Rahul Sarkhel, and Shikhar Agrawal, all graduate
students at the iSchool, took the third-place prize of $1,500 for their project that studies the analytics of
plowing, including how much work each plow truck does. They also attempted to build an algorithm that
would show the optimal routes for the trucks.

Sam Edelstein, an alumnus of the iSchool and the chief data officer for the City of Syracuse, helped with
the hackathon. Edelstein believes it's smart for cities to collaborate with the community and local
universities in order to make decisions.

"All of these projects were impressive and prove that when we release data to the public, people will take
it and find creative ways to interpret it to benefit everyone," Edelstein said.
Last year, the first Civic Data Hackathon centered around the issue of road conditions in Syracuse. The
winner of the competition created an app that allowed users to report potholes found around the city.

Daily Orange

http://dailyorange.com/2018/03/ischool-hackathon-winners-tackle-syracuse-snow-removal/

iSchool ‘hackathon’ winners tackle Syracuse snow removal

Mayor Ben Walsh was at Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies on Wednesday as winners
were announced for a competition that encouraged people to brainstorm ways to improve city snow plow
services.

The competition, called a “hackathon,” was based on a dump of data related to snow plow operations,
said Sam Edelstein, Syracuse’s chief data officer. Edelstein, along with Walsh, attended a brief press
conference Wednesday at the iSchool, alongside Dean Elizabeth Liddy.

“The projects were really impressive. We’re excited to do more and to implement these ideas so that we
can use them in the future,” said Edelstein, an SU alumnus.

The hackathon was held in partnership between the city, iSchool and AT&T.

Liddy said 36 teams, with 90 participants, registered as part of the competition. Sixteen of those teams
submitted their final projects for review, the dean said.

Dean Olin, a Camillus resident, and Alex Sinfarosa of Ithaca won first place in the competition. The duo
designed a way for Syracuse to view real-time updates on what city roads were plowed and the amount
of time elapsed since those roads were last plowed, Edelstein said.

“Basically we did a timelapse map,” Olin said. “The colors of the roads change, depending on how long it
has been since a plow has been (there). So it gives you a visual idea of … ‘Oh, this neighborhood always
goes last, they always seem to be red.’”

Olin graduated from Cornell University in December with a bachelor’s degree in information science, he
said. Sinfarosa did not attend the event. Olin said he met Sinfarosa in Ithaca.

In total, Olin said he spent about 40 hours on the project. Sinfarosa spent about 25 hours, he added.

Snow removal has become a hot-button topic in Syracuse since Walsh was inaugurated in January. The
mayor hosted a “snow safety summit” in February after Syracuse.com reported residents were forced to
walk in streets due to unshoveled sidewalks.

Syracuse is known as one of the snowiest cities in the United States. It has received almost 125 inches of
snow throughout the 2017-18 snow season, according to goldensnowball.com. The Golden Snowball
Award is a competition among upstate New York cities, including Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse over
who receives the most snow in a given year.

Michael Phillips, a master’s student studying computational linguistics in the College of Arts and
Sciences, received second place in the competition for creating a project that would allow residents to
“easily search” what streets were plowed and at what time.
A group of iSchool graduate students won third place: Suchitra Deekshitula, Anish Nair, Ashmin Swain,
Rahul Sarkhel and Shikhar Agrawal. The team designed a optimization algorithm for snow plow trucks.

The snow plow competition was Syracuse’s second “hackathon” event partnership. Last year, the
competition focused on city infrastructure improvements.

Since taking office, Walsh has expressed a willingness to partner with local universities and has spoken
at both SU and Le Moyne College. In January, he said the city would work with the Maxwell School of
Citizenship and Public Affairs to host a “Fiscal Summit” in hopes of identifying ways of addressing the
city’s multimillion-dollar deficit.

Walsh, who wore a small SU pin on his suit coat Wednesday, received a master’s degree in public
administration from Maxwell in 2005.

“In every decision we make, we are trying to make data-driven decisions,” the mayor said of city policy.
“We were thrilled with that participation level this year. We look forward to doing it again next year.”

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WAER radio

http://waer.org/post/hackathon-results-could-bring-new-ways-keep-syracuse-streets-clear-snow
Hackathon Results Could Bring New Ways to Keep Syracuse Streets Clear of Snow

By Chris Bolt & Hailey René & Natalie Fahmy • 15 hours ago

Who knew crunching data might result in better ways to keep Syracuse streets clear of snow? The City of
Syracuse announced the winners of this year’s Plowing through Data Hackathon Wednesday. The city
partnered with AT&T and Syracuse University’s iSchool to call on the community to analyze Syracuse’s
snowplow data and create new technologies to better manage the snowfall. Mayor Ben Walsh says they
weren’t making the most of the data collected by the plow’s GPS software.

Dean Olin and Alex Sinfarosa took first place in the Data Hackathon with their project that lets the City
see when roads were last plowed.

"The good news was I could see the little dots moving around, so I knew where the plows were, but I
couldn't tell where they had been. And so if somebody said a plow hasn't been on my street I either had to
reach out to DPW and track down the actual plow driver to find out whether or not they had or Sam
[Edelstein, Chief Data Officer] about 24 hours later when they had taken all the data and updated all the
maps accordingly."

Dean Olin and Alex Sinfarosa took first place with a project that lets the City see when roads were last
plowed. Olin says he and his partner decided to analyze data in four day chunks.

"We decided to just have a slider on the top where you could drag the slider across every two hours and
see, get a visual representation, on the roads of how long it has been since the plow was on the road. So
the thresholds, there is green, orange and red, depending on how long the plow has been there,
obviously red is the plow hasn't been there in over 24 hours."

Olin says it was designed mainly for DPW staff.

"I see it more as sort of a visual dashboard, as one purpose. And also for if a resident calls up and says
'hey every time it snows it's like 24 hours at least before somebody gets to my road.' So they can look
back and they can move the slider and see yeah this person is right, we always leave that neighborhood
for last, maybe we can mix up the routes, we'll do that neighborhood first next time."

Olin says the city hasn’t yet committed to using their idea, but he and his partner took home $3,500 in
prize money.