A keynote from Joe Reardon (left) and Sly James was among the highlights at the first CityCampKC./span>

Citizens and elected officials from both sides of State Line Road rallied together last weekend at the inaugural CityCampKC, collaborating in a new forum aimed at developing next generation solutions for the Kansas City community.

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During a keynote on Saturday, Kansas City, Mo. Mayor Sly James and Wyandotte County Unified Government Mayor Joe Reardon expressed their ongoing commitment to collaboration, innovation and technology across boundaries to move both cities forward. “If you want to go fast, go alone,” James said. “But if you want to go far, go together.”

This was the spirit that was embodied by Kansas City civic leaders, tech enthusiasts, urbanists and elected officials who all gathered at OfficePort for CityCampKC, the first civic-minded “unconference” in the Kansas City metro area focused on innovation for municipal governments and community organizations.

Both mayors shared observations of how the Google Fiber initiative has encouraged collaboration and creativity across governmental and jurisdictional lines, on a level that’s never been seen before. They also discussed how it presents a great opportunity for other cities to observe, learn and build off any key findings from the project.

“The fact that this has never been done before allows us to show the world how creative we are,” James said. “And believe me, there are a lot of people who are looking at Kansas City to see what we do, and how we’re going to do it. We can’t be afraid to make a mistake as we try. We simply have to be bold and try as many things that we possibly can because in boldness, we will also find some greatness.”

Reardon expressed strong support for the open source movement in local government. Applications for reporting potholes, mapping crime, accessing transit data and improving quality of life are just some of the possibilities for Kansas City.

“Opening up the (data) vault can really cause a lot of entrepreneurialism and creativity to all kinds of things that cities are doing,” Reardon said. “You’re going to be creating the solutions and the applications in better ways than, perhaps, the government ever could. But we have to feed you the data in order for that to happen, and it’s an important fundamental step for us to take.”

Ignite, a hackathon and calls to action

The rest of the daylong event consisted of talks, networking, brainstorming and hands-on problem-solving. The morning began with Ignite KC 2012, which featured civic leaders giving rapid-fire presentations on government, literacy, economic development and more.

The afternoon kicked off with a Hackathon focused on creating an application for BikeWalkKC, a local nonprofit working to improve walking and bicycling in the Greater Kansas City area. Kansas City native and Heroku engineer Ryan Smith led the Ruby on Rails programming team to build a prototype using open source government data in less than 2.5 hours. Meanwhile, the remaining attendees were divided into three separate groups — walkers, bikers and riders (pictured left) — and came up with ideas and feedback to be integrated into future versions of the app. Ultimately, the platform will be used to help citizens find safe and convenient places to walk or bike, report road or sidewalk hazards and provide data to local officials planning new bike lanes, trails and sidewalks.

Organizers designed CityCampKC to produce actionable ideas for applying technology to government challenges and to better define the way participation, open data and web applications can enhance the future of the metro area. With their efforts so far, CityCampKC‘s organizers have already caught the attention of elected officials. Both Reardon and James provided recommendations for people who want to get involved.

“Attend more events like this,” Reardon said. “There are more of these happening now than ever before in Kansas City, and I really think we’re seeing an energy and momentum. So gathering places like OfficePort, which is really a fantastic place — so alive, every single day.”

“Come to our Bi-State Innovations Team,” Reardon continued. “These meetings are open to the public and anyone can come. We’re listening to all those voices as it moves to a playbook.”

Added James: “Pick a sector to focus on, because it’s too broad right now for everyone to do everything. Otherwise it’s impossible to coordinate.”

For more from CityCampKC, see a sampling of photos taken at Saturday’s event below.