Stepping into a big room, no matter how familiar it is, and beginning to connect up our tools, review our program, and execute, is always mixed with a little anxiety. It’s then that we take a deep breath and imagine the moment that motivated us to get out and perform today; the vision of scoresRead… Read more »
Where does community begin? It’s a question we’ve been asking ourselves a lot. With nearly all our projects, what we we’re aiming to do in cities is to help them use the Internet to harness the power of cognitive surplus — the concept of many people coming together to do big things. This weekend we’reRead… Read more »
We’re actively recruiting for our 2012 fellowship, and we need developers, designers, and entrepreneurs eager to make a difference and ready to step up to make government for open and efficient. We know there’s lots of talent waiting to get involved all across the country, and we need you to help us find them. YouRead… Read more »
A UK-based non-profit, mySociety released publicly last week evaluation reports for two of their major open government initiatives: TheyWorkForYou (report here) and WriteToThem (report here). TheyWorkForYou attempts to “make it easier to find out what your MP [Member of Parliament] has been doing in Parliament,” and WriteToThem tries to “make it easier to find outRead… Read more »
Last Thursday, Code for America was proud to partner with GovFresh and change.org bring together the 2011 San Francisco Mayoral candidates for a discussion on open government and innovation. Participating candidates included Michela Alioto-Pier, John Avalos, David Chiu, Bevan Dufty, Tony Hall, Dennis Herrera, Joanna Rees, Phil Ting and Leland Yee and the debate wasRead… Read more »
One of the exciting things about being in the inaugural class of Code for America Fellows is watching the Code for America culture evolve: hawk screams and git commit messages reverberate through the office; visitors jump into cross-functional teams on Labs Fridays; everyone is eager to share their knowledge and skills. It’s the kind ofRead… Read more »
A few weeks ago, we welcomed our summer interns to Code for America. During that time each of the Fellows was asked to name one fun thing about working at Code for America, so now we have a list “fun” things — however biased — about working for Code for America, which I thought we’dRead… Read more »
Last week, CfA kicked off its summer internship program with two notable visits: DJ Patil, Chief of Product at Color, and Ev Williams and Jason Goldman formerly of Twitter. Both talks offered unique insights about technology, entrepreneurship, and social change. Patil shared his broad range of experiences in academia, government, and tech — highlighting keyRead… Read more »
With more and more civic data becoming available and accessible, the challenge grows for policy makers and citizens to leverage that data for better decision-making. It is often difficult to understand context and perform analysis. “Weave”, however, helps. A web-based data visualization tool, Weave enables users to explore, analyze, visualize and disseminate data online fromRead… Read more »
For the past three months, developers from across the country have been working with community partners to create mobile apps that will help low-income Americans improve their lives. Hosted by One Economy, the Applications for Good competition challenged developers to think about how technology can improve education, employment, health and finances. We were thrilled toRead… Read more »