January 2026 | Civic Mini-Hackathon
The May 16, 2025 EF3 tornado served as a major stress test on St. Louis’s critical infrastructure, including its housing and food systems from Clayton and University City to North St. Louis neighborhoods. The destruction exposed existing vulnerabilities in distribution networks, farm resilience, environmental safety, and residents’ ability to access nutritious, affordable food and safe homes, especially during moments of crisis.
Organized by the Arch Data Network in partnership with TechSTL, Civic City, Food City, and city officials (Recorder of Deeds, Michael Butler, and Ward 6 Alderwoman, Daniela Velazquez) this event welcomed more than 60 participants who are passionate about data, technology, and community impact. They worked hands-on with real datasets and advanced tools from technology sponsors like Snowflake who provided a platform and some pre-curated data for the event. The participants self-organized into 9 teams (many of where strangers until the event) that worked together to build practical, data-driven solutions that all have the potential to strengthen the region’s long-term resilience and recovery. By all accounts, they also had fun!, meeting new people, and sharpening skills in data engineering, analytics, and AI. You’ll probably even learn some things to take back to your workplace!
Awards!
All nine teams deserve accolades for their work! The insights they gained, creativity they used in developing ideas, and expertise they brought to bear in delivering working solutions was astounding. Three teams were called with special recognition:
Greatest Potential Impact went to the group Optimize_STL who delivered a machine learning powered approach to identifying the most effective places to establish aid centers in the aftermath of a disaster based on population and damage data. Eric Wismar, Israel Chavez, Mahfoud B.
Most Innovative Solution went to Mercy and Friends who build a solution that extracted insights from radiological measurements to identify areas that would gain the most value from radon testing, and enabled care givers and engagement teams to proactively reach out to those residents. Tom Forsyth, Doug Graham, Chelsea West, Jeff Korte, Laura Darby Rose, Paula Gentry, and Alexandria Meeks.
Most Work Completed Today went to Show Me the Metrics who built an entire platform for managing unstructured PDF files and using an LLM to extract useful information from those documents in a self-service experience. Way to empower every-day humans with analyst super-powers! Abby Yang, Brendan Daly, Benjamin N., Andrew Castillo, and Bill Tillmon
Continuing the Work
Several team members have already decided they want to be part of an ongoing volunteer effort to continue this work and deliver something the city, civic groups, and other stakeholders can actually put to use. Follow the Arch Data Network on LinkedIn to keep up to date.