On September 6 at MIT we are organizing an Open “Hack Day” to launch a Code for America project, CityGroups, for the city of Boston. CityGroups is a public directory of community groups. CityGroups makes it easier to find those little, super-local community organizations that work to make our cities better. Features A public directoryRead… Read more »
As Hurricane Irene has now passed through New York, the most common terms I’ve heard in response sound something like “overhyped” and “underwhelming.” (All in all, that’s probably a good thing; the opposite would be much, much worse.) With that lens, however, we risk glazing over the nitty gritty of the weekend — that is,Read… Read more »
As one of the first interns at CfA, I am pleased with my experience with both CFA and Google Summer of Code. This summer I was assigned to develop PHP libraries on existing government related projects. Much of my work has focused on v2 of the Open311 API spec, National Health Library API’s, creating aRead… Read more »
(Over the summer of 2011, over a dozen students interned with Code for America. They brought great energy, passion, and skills to bear on our projects and our mission to make government more open and efficient. Over the next week, we’ll be posting their summaries of their work and learnings, in addition to an overviewRead… Read more »
What is Whyday? It’s a day dedicated to Why the Lucky Stiff, a programming hero of mine. He created Why’s Poignant Guide to Ruby, which served as my introduction to the Ruby programming language. He’s also authored a massive collection of open-source projects, including Camping, a small web framework; Markaby, a pure-Ruby templating language; andRead… Read more »
We had another great Iconathon in Los Angeles on Saturday August 13, 2011. (Jump to Photos) In Iconathons, designers, public policy people, coders and other interested citizens get together to develop new civic symbols for the public domain. These symbols can be used in new web applications, infographics, signage, policy documents, maps and anywhere elseRead… Read more »
This week, we select finalists for 2012. Over 550 applications came in for just 26 spots in next year’s class. For me, the response is such a mix of excitement, humility, hopefulness, a little bit of daunting and frankly, a sense of missed opportunity for those we can’t take. On one hand, 5% acceptance isRead… Read more »
All of this only works because people are willing to step up. Because individuals across the country — and in fact across the globe — decide that they want to help their communities, that they have skills they want to contribute, that they want to Code for America. Last year, we were overwhelmed with theRead… Read more »
OpenSource.com is an interesting and active resource for insights on open source technology in industries ranging from business and law to education and government. Today, they featured a post on Civic Commons and specifically on the marketplace we’re in the process of building and how you can help: Civic technology experts have recognized the benefitsRead… Read more »
OpenSource.com is an interesting and active resource for insights on open source technology in industries ranging from business and law to education and government. Today, they featured a post on Civic Commons and specifically on the marketplace we’re in the process of building and how you can help: Civic technology experts have recognized the benefitsRead… Read more »