We interrupt the daily doomsday freak-out to report on a bunch of New Haveners finding hope in AI. The 30 or so digital tinkerers are sharing ideas for using artifiical intelligence for software that connects community in ways to make the city better. Calling themselves the Homegrown Tech Gro up, they have begun meeting weekly in pop-up space on Chapel Street to share ideas about new software they’re developing with AI to help neighbors swap advice, track down slum landlords, tackle challenges of poverty — even learn about the houses they live in. They keep the conversation going informally along the way, comparing notes on, say, scaling up their concepts. Some have worked in tech before, others not. All have found that coding tools from companies like Anthropic and Open AI have enabled them to whip up new software that used to require teams of more experienced professionals to develop. In the process, they’re seizing a creative moment similar to the software boom that occurred 20 years ago at an earlier moment of innovation. New AI tools have made it possible for more people than ever before to develop new ideas for improving their communities. “Some kind of reset is happening here” in tech in terms of civic software, said one of the group’s organizers, Ben Berkowitz. Berkowitz happened to seize the last Big Tech Moment as well. He invented the community-solving platform SeeClickFix in New Haven. It grew into a company serving local governments around the world. On his own, Berkowitz recently began developing a next-gen neighborhood-connection app called Neighborhoonie.  He ran into career nonprofit leader Joanne Sciulli (founder of the Solar Youth youth program), who had been using AI to develop a tool for Hartford’s NAACP to help people find out how to get housing or financial help or learn about neighborhood crime statistics or problem landlords. Sciulli did not have a coding background. She was looking for pointers in developing her app. (Click here for more info on tools she’s cooking up for nonprofits.) “At one point when I was building this, I said: I need to talk to somebody who actually does this. I texted Ben, and I’m like, ‘Hey Ben, what are you doing these days?’” Sciulli recalled Thursday during a Homegrown Tech Group interview on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven.” “Because I was building it, it felt a little bit like I was playing with Legos, but actually building a building. I needed somebody who knew that there was something actually real on the other end of it to look at it.” They shared links. They encountered other people on similar journeys. So they began meeting up with others developing similar tools. Thus was born the Homegrown Tech Group.  Climate Haven, a nonprofit developing green start-ups, offered the group space to hold their weekly gatherings at its space on the third floor of 770 Chapel St. … … which, in a fitting twist, was where Berkowitz and company built SeeClickFix from New Haven into a cutting-edge international company. Dan McLeggon used to work with Berkowitz at SeeClickFix. Now he, too, heads to that Chapel Street space to participating in the Homegrown meetup. McLeggon got the next-gen AI civic tech bug when he began researching his house in Westville. He started playing around with AI tools. Within days, he had produced a book about the history of his home. “What really struck me was the lives behind it. Westville started with a neighborhood with a farmhouse and kind of filled in. The story of my house is: The milkman marries the farmer’s daughter. They build a house next door (which is where I live) and stays in the family for 70 years. What really made an emotional connection for me was learning that they raised a young daughter. And that’s what I’m doing now.”  McLeggon ended up with software that can create an illustrated book about any house, drawing on deeds and other public records, news clippings, photos. He’s now developing the tool for public use through a company called the House Atlas. The Homegrown group has helped him find early adopters helping him to hone the product. (To learn more about Homegrown Tech Group, email Berkowitz at [email protected].) Click on the below video to watch the full conversation with Homegrown Tech Group’s Ben Berkowitz, Joanne Sciulli, and Dan McLeggon. Click here to subscribe or here to listen to other episodes of “Dateline New Haven.” Click here to download the WNHH FM app. The post AI Propels Civic Tech 2.0 appeared first on New Haven Independent. ...read more read less