About a year ago, Joplin, Missouri was tragically hit by the worst tornado in decades. Now, after its visit by President Obama for the Joplin High School commencement, it has launched a new website. The website is the result of a hackathon which was judged in part by GovLoop founder and CEO Steve Ressler. Joplin,Read… Read more »
2012 is turning out to be a big year for Code for America. Earlier this year, we launched two new programs to help bring technology innovation to bear on the challenges facing governments – our Civic Accelerator and Code for America Brigade. Both of these new programs will play an important role in complementing andRead… Read more »
Here is today’s federal cybersecurity and information technology news: An Al Qaeda video calls for an “electronic jihad” against American computer networks. More here. The National Security Agency will set up Centers of Academic Excellence in Cyber Operations at Dakota State University, Naval Postgraduate School, Northeastern University, and University of Tulsa where cleared students canRead… Read more »
I was a master carpenter at a factory that made blasting caps. Part of my job was rigging, safely moving large, heavy things. We had many single use tools in our factory – jigs, templates, reams, crimpers, burnishing tools, but the toolmakers, the top of our heap, had lathes, great big steel beds that wouldRead… Read more »
On Tuesday the Obama administration laid out their ambitious Digital Government Strategy. Federal CIO Steven VanRoekel and Federal CTO Todd Park unveiled the strategy at the TechCrunch Disrupt NYC that took place in New York. “It’s a roadmap to transform government to be an enablement platform. Open data will be the new default. On topRead… Read more »
Mark Drapeau (Washington, DC) — A few years ago, in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, a bar called The Taj opened. What was unusual about it was not so much the fact that it was the only bar in the eastern part of Afghanistan, but the method of payment: data. In brief, if Taj visitors had useful dataRead… Read more »
As our team of three Philadelphia fellows met with city officials and local organizations across the city, we heard the number 42 over and over. No, we weren’t hitchiking across the galaxy. Forty-two is the percentage of Philadelphians without home internet access according to a 2010 poll by the Pew Internet & American Life ProjectRead… Read more »
On 16 May 2012 I attended, with Alex Olesker and defense contractor Robert Caruso the Atlantic Council/Cyber Conflict Studies Association’s event “Lessons From Our Cyber Past: The First Cyber Cops.” Jason Healey of ACUS/CCSA moderated a discussion between the ODNI’s Steven R. Chabinsky, Crowdstrike President Shawn Henry, the State Department’s Christopher Painter. Alex has alreadyRead… Read more »
Sometimes simply talking about a concept doesn’t do it justice. Often it takes seeing something tangible to drive the point home. While we talk about agile development and more effective use of technology in addressing civic issues, when we see it in practice we begin to see what is actually possible, and understand the powerRead… Read more »
When we started working on Brigade we were really excited and we got a lot of other people excited, too. We burst onto the scene with a bunch of activity and a web site. Meaningful, sustainable outcomes emerged from our initial sprint. Open San Diego deployed Azavea’s Open Data Catalog and now there are 413Read… Read more »