Community Engagement Portal

A Bold Vision for Community Engagement

Ntropy Data, a San Francisco-based startup, set out to revolutionize how organizations engage with their communities. As the company’s first employee and principal front-end developer, I played a key role in shaping its flagship product: a scalable, highly customizable community engagement platform that ultimately became the centerpiece of Ntropy’s acquisition by Civica in 2021.

From Idea to Scalable Platform

We needed to build an entire platform from the ground up, one that empowered local governments, enterprises, and organizations to foster meaningful dialogue through surveys, live polls, discussion forums, reporting dashboards, and interactive content modules. The challenge was not just technical but also strategic: we had to define the vision, secure stakeholder buy-in, and differentiate ourselves in a competitive market.

Admins use the Admin Portal to customize their web app - design themes, edit pages, manage navigation and menus, add projects, arrange widgets, create blogs, and more, all with a flexible, intuitive layout system.

Building for Customization and Usability

Architecting the Platform: I led the UI design and front-end development of the platform, focusing on React and CSS to create an intuitive and dynamic user experience.
Designing for Scale: To secure buy-in early on, I designed Figma prototypes that accurately represented the final product, helping align stakeholders early in development.
Building Two Distinct Systems:
- Admin Portal – A powerful toolset for administrational users to create and customize their own engagement websites.
- Community Portal – A public-facing web app where users interacted, shared feedback, and participated in engagement initiatives.
Driving Innovation: I developed a suite of over 40 interactive tools for engagement, feedback, and analytics, ensuring organizations had everything they needed to connect with their communities.
Ensuring Compliance & Marketability: Due to the nature of working with city governments, we focused on GDPR compliance, accessibility standards, and UX optimizations to enhance usability and widen adoption.

Users visit their city’s Community Portal to create an account and engage - reading content, downloading documents, commenting, taking live polls and surveys, interacting with maps, and more.

Users are encouraged to create an account via email or socials integration to further engage and interact with their city.

Powering Impact and Driving an Acquisition

The platform was successfully adopted by governments and enterprises, including the City of Sydney, which engaged over 5 million residents, earning the International Association for Public Participation Award for its impact.

Ntropy’s platform became a leader in digital engagement, catching the attention of Civica, which acquired the company in 2021. After the acquisition, I joined Civica’s team continuing to enhance front-end features and optimize UI/UX, ensuring the platform’s long-term success.

Showcasing customization via the Admin Portal, changes are previewed in real time. A few key competitors already existed in the digital engagement space and our key differentiator was to provide as much self-service customizability as possible.

Key Metrics

Designed and developed a full-scale community engagement platform from the ground up.
Built and optimized a suite of 40+ interactive tools, including surveys, reporting, authentication, analytics, and blogs.
Contributed to civic impact, enabling the City of Sydney to engage millions of residents and win an international public participation award.
Led front-end development, implementing scalable, accessible, and high-performance UI solutions.
Facilitated a successful acquisition, as the platform became the centerpiece of Civica’s expansion strategy.
Drove ideas from concept to execution, owning the process end-to-end to deliver intuitive experiences that drive engagement, adoption, and measurable results