HEYASHLEYASHLEY

hi my name is ashley williams

i like to think about thinking, especially the type of thinking that happens when people write code.

when i was in college at Wesleyan University, people called me "the network". as a freshman i inherited a dubiously-legal cardboard box held together with beer wrappers that ran some homespun instances of dc++, bang with friends, and an anonymous confession board. it was clearly the beginning of something beautiful.

nowadays, i make things for, and on, the internet. i write them primarily in ruby and javascript. most of my projects are tutorials for teaching people how to code, or tools that make it easier to learn.

9 to 5 i'm roo(s)ting for the web at Bocoup; spending my time building curriculum, teaching teachers, and working on open source with one of the raddest teams on the internet. before that, i used to teach people how to be web developers at the Flatiron School where i led the NYC web development fellowship. i also organize an open source community of civic technologists in NYC with Code for America.

sometimes i go to events and talk about civic technology, open data, open source community building, and developer education.

i am trying to get better about writing my ideas down.

say hi if you want.

projects

{"name"=>"RatPack", "url"=>"http://ashleygwilliams.github.io/ratpack", "org"=>"Flatiron School", "org_url"=>"http://flationschool.com", "github"=>"https://github.com/ashleygwilliams/ratpack", "desc"=>"a simple boilerplate for creating production-ready sinatra apps that use activerecord, sqlite, and twitter bootstrap", "tags"=>["ruby", "sinatra", "activerecord", "sqlite"], "img"=>"ratpack.png"}

{"name"=>"treasury.io", "url"=>"http://treasury.io", "org"=>"CSV soundsystem", "org_url"=>"http://csvsoundsystem.com", "github"=>"https://github.com/csvsoundsystem/treasury.io", "desc"=>"the first-ever electronically-searchable database of the Federal government's daily cash spending and borrowing", "tags"=>["javascript", "branding", "graphic design", "html/css", "JSON", "open data"], "img"=>"treasuryio.png"}

{"name"=>"NYPL Time Traveller", "url"=>"http://bit.ly/time-traveller", "github"=>"https://github.com/thejefflarson/nypl-hack", "org"=>"NYPL Labs", "org_url"=>"http://www.nypl.org/collections/labs", "desc"=>"a Foursquare application that displays historical photographs using the geo-coded NYPL historical images API around the area of your check-in", "tags"=>["ruby", "rails", "activerecord", "postgres", "postGIS", "JSON", "javascript", "oAuth", "open data"], "img"=>"timetraveller.png", "press"=>{"Foursquare blog"=>"http://blog.foursquare.com/2013/06/19/a-different-kind-of-time-travel-go-back-to-the-new-york-of-100-years-ago/", "Venture Beat"=>"http://venturebeat.com/2013/06/19/foursquare-nypl-historical-photos/", "Beatbeat"=>"http://betabeat.com/2013/06/hey-history-nerds-turn-foursquare-into-an-orgy-of-vintage-photos/"}}

{"name"=>"Canary Detector", "url"=>"http://canarydetector.com/", "desc"=>"a smarter smoke alarm. allows you to connect to an monitor your device with your mobile phone. also serves as an indoor air quality monitor and produces an open dataset for indoor air quality.", "tags"=>["javascript", "nodeJS", "sockets", "arduino", "html/css", "leaflet", "JSON", "google polylines", "open data"], "img"=>"canary.png", "press"=>{"Gizmodo"=>"http://gizmodo.com/every-smart-appliance-should-be-as-brilliant-as-this-sm-597966224", "Fast Company"=>"http://www.fastcoexist.com/1682307/a-smarter-smoke-detector-that-tracks-the-horrible-air-youre-breathing"}}

{"name"=>"AppGen", "url"=>"http://appgen.me", "github"=>"https://github.com/appgen", "desc"=>"a rapid prototyping tool that allows one to browse the superset of open civic datasets by generating standalone, fully functional and branded web applications using either a single dataset or a stochastic join of two datasets that share at least one column.", "tags"=>["ruby", "sinatra", "geoJSON", "javascript", "html/css", "leaflet", "open data"], "img"=>"appgen.png"}

{"name"=>"AppGen Audit", "url"=>"http://appgen.me/audit", "github"=>"https://github.com/appgen", "desc"=>"a set of open data best practices and reporting algorithms. example reports are run on the NYC open data portal.", "tags"=>["ruby", "sinatra", "JSON", "javascript", "html/css", "d3.js", "open data"], "img"=>"appgenaudit.png"}

{"name"=>"#win", "url"=>"http://www.hackathon.io/excellent-russian", "github"=>"https://github.com/ashleygwilliams/win", "desc"=>"a bespoke leaderboard for publishers that pulls in a set of keywords from specific categories of articles and displays the relative popularity of those keywords, as well as the twitter/instagram users who are most actively and successfully interacting with those keywords across social networks", "tags"=>["ruby", "sinatra", "singly", "oAuth", "twitter", "instagram", "haml", "sass"], "img"=>"win.jpg"}

events

{"name"=>"betaNYC #civichacknights", "date"=>"ongoing", "url"=>"http://www.meetup.com/betanyc/", "desc"=>"a community event that provides members with space to work on technical and policy projects, as well as discuss issues and share resources in support of NYC's civic technology ecosystem.", "img"=>"civichacknight.jpeg"}

{"name"=>"Young Rewired State NYC", "date"=>"June 2013", "url"=>"https://youngrewiredstate.org/yrs-everywhere/yrs-new-york-city", "desc"=>"a weekend hackathon where kids and teens are challenged to build an application that uses open data", "role"=>"served as a technical mentor; gave two lightning instruction sessions, one on github, one on reveal.js; ran adhoc IT services", "img"=>"yrsnyc.jpg", "press"=>{"Eventifier"=>"http://eventifier.co/event/yrsnyc/", "Socrata Blog"=>"http://www.socrata.com/blog/nyc-youth-hackers-use-open-data/", "The Guardian"=>"http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/jul/03/new-york-hackathon-next-generation-programmers"}}

{"name"=>"citibike NYC #civichacknight", "date"=>"June 2013", "url"=>"http://www.meetup.com/betanyc/events/121671282/", "role"=>"organizer", "desc"=>"an event dedicated to exploring and hacking the yet unreleased citibike NYC JSON endpoint.", "img"=>"citibike.jpeg"}

{"name"=>"Mobilizing Historical Geodata: Hack NYC's Past with NYPL Labs", "date"=>"June 2013", "url"=>"https://www.google.com/calendar/render?eid=dHZqODQzaGJnbjQ2a2E2N2tjM2Q3anVwczRfMjAxMzA2MDRUMTMwMDAwWiBramhnYjkxN2EzanFrcjgxY2JpY2Q1a2Q0Y0Bn&sf=true&output=xml", "img"=>"nypl2.jpg", "press"=>{"Peter Leonard"=>"http://www.thegogglesdonothing.com/archives/2013/06/nypl_maps_hack_2013.shtml"}}

{"name"=>"NYC Startup Weekend", "date"=>"June 2013", "url"=>"http://nyc.startupweekend.org/", "role"=>"served as a technical mentor; had significant influence on the winning team Linesnapp, including originally telling them that their idea was awful", "desc"=>"an (in)famous event for technical entrepreneurs to attempt to ideate a technical product and produce a working, user-tested MVP in a single weekend."}

{"name"=>"Transparency Camp", "date"=>"May 2013", "url"=>"http://transparencycamp.org/schedule/2013/", "desc"=>"an unconference focused on tech policy and civic technology to promote transparency and civic engagement", "role"=>"ran 3 unconference sessions: 1) building open source civic tech communities; 2) AppGen: a critique of the quality of open data offerings and the products produced at civic hackathons; 3) The logistics of running an open source civic tech community: a talk with the Code for America brigade captains", "img"=>"tcamp.jpg"}

{"name"=>"NYC Big Apps 3.0 CleanWeb Developer Day", "date"=>"May 2013", "url"=>"http://nycbigappscleanwebdevelopday.eventbrite.com/", "desc"=>"a civic hack day for building applications that promote environmental awareness using NYC open data; part of the NYC BigApps competition 'Big Issues' series", "role"=>"received second place for Canary Detector, a smarter smoke detector; wrote up a quick node.js app using sockets to give a cool realtime demo", "press"=>{"NYC Economic Development Corporation"=>"http://www.nycedc.com/blog-entry/nyc-bigapps-and-cleanweb-can-our-smartphones-make-us-greener"}}

{"name"=>"Meet Code for America NYC", "date"=>"May 2013", "url"=>"http://www.meetup.com/betanyc/events/111395902/", "desc"=>"an event to introduce Code for America's fellows,, the brigade program captains, and the accelerator team.", "role"=>"gave a talk about starting weekly civic hacknights as a critical reaction to the growth of 'hackathon' culture in NYC, and strategies for forming sustainable open source communities.", "img"=>"betanyc.jpeg"}

{"name"=>"Occupy Data NYC Hackathon Yackathon", "date"=>"April 2013", "url"=>"http://occupydatanyc.org/2013/04/08/april-28tnd-yackathon/", "desc"=>"a symposium, or rather, yackathon, to bring the ideas, the outcomes, and the problems of hackathons into critical perspective.", "role"=>"represented code for america as an opposing perspective to the occupy data movement's and highight the unique successes and challenges of working for vs. against the govt", "img"=>"hackyack.jpeg", "press"=>{"Mr Literati"=>"http://mrliterati.com/2013/04/30/hackathon-yackathon-reflections/"}}

{"name"=>"Hearst Fashion Hack", "date"=>"February 2013", "url"=>"http://www.hearstfashionhack.com/", "desc"=>"a hackathon from Hearst publishers with a focus on combining new fashion content with the latest mobile advancements and tools from Hearst's API partners, with special consideration given to creative solutions that connect readers and editors in real-time.", "img"=>"hearst.jpg", "press"=>{"Third Wave Fashion"=>"http://thirdwavefashion.com/2013/02/event-recap-the-hearst-fashion-hackathon-takes-on-nyfw/"}}