Jessica Cole

I am a builder and a citizen. I create technologies and institutions that better connect people to the neighborhoods around them. Hijinks include Field Trip Societies that send hundreds of people spelunking into their own urban backyards, a startup serving tens of thousands of locals, and monthly civic leader retreats schemed up by our partnership team at Our Commonwealth.

Projects:

Outreach Director at Panorama Education helping 6500 K-12 schools around the country get better data and learn more about their communities.

Founder of neighborhood discovery website and mobile app Roammeo. Fellow at the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute, winner of the 2012 Yale Venture challenge, and a finalist in the MassChallenge accelerator program.

Endless instigator of urban involvement (author of open-source Unofficial Guide to New Haven, poetry-and-city-loving author of 13 Ways of Looking at a City Block blog, repeat offender at the National Day of Civic Hacking, and former co-head of the Dwight Hall Urban Fellows program).

Journalist and reporter with contributions to the New Haven Independent, the New Journal magazine, and the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune.

Hunger and homelessness advocate, fundraiser, and volunteer.

Social policy wonk who wrote a senior thesis on Career and Technical Education (CTE) case studies.

Hobbyist community builder 365/24/7.