Nine San Francisco mayoral candidates and more than 100 of the city's technophiles and "government 2.0" types gathered Thursday night for a tech-focused mayoral debate that started with a simple question: How would you use technology to fix the city?

The Bay Citizen was invited by event organizer Summer of Smart to show off our Bike Accident Tracker at an "apps showcase" before the debate. Using public data and technology to approach messy urban problems is a big part of our newsroom's mission, so it was great to spread the word about some of the surprising data findings that surfaced through our app. (Like the sad, unexpected fact that in the Bay Area, kids suffer the most biking accidents of any age group).

Code for America, Stamen Design and a few others presented their urban-data apps, too — don't miss Open311, which maps requests for city services like sidewalk cleaning by time and neighborhood, or Tendernoise, an interactive map of street-level decibel levels in the Tenderloin (hint: it's crazy loud out there!). 

The debate was moderated by the endlessly interesting Mitch Kapor, with a series of six questions that each candidate had (in theory) one minute to answer. Here's some highlights:

• City Attorney Dennis Herrera's first open-government move would be to hire a chief digital officer and create an Office of Innovation.

• Venture capitalist Joanna Rees wants to "bring management practices" to government processes.

• David Chiu, president of the Board of Supervisors, wants to use crowdsourced social media to improve Muni performance in real-time. (He also claims he's the only front runner in the mayoral race who doesn't own a car.)

• Nearly every candidate chimed in with support for free citywide Wi-Fi, an old chestnut of an idea with lots of popular support that has failed here (and elsewhere) in the past.

For more takeaways from Thursday night's event, check out the Chron's City Insider and the SF Appeal. 

And get ready for the next installment of Summer of Smart, the four-month experiment in urban innovation and digital culture behind Thursday night's debate. Starting next Friday, June 24, come join a 24-hour "urban hackathon" focused on building apps for community development and public art. If the tech-focused mayoral forum was any indication, it's gonna be a long, cool summer here in SF!