Recently, there has been much
news about Code for America’s involvement with local governments in developing
new services, apps, and technology. I
wondered how this innovative nonprofit came to be, how it operates, its effect
on government, and where it might be going in the future.
Code for
America was founded in 2009 by Jennifer Pahlka with support from “web
entrepreneur Leonard Lin, Tim O’Reilly of O’Reilly Media, and technologist Clay
Johnson.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_for_America) It’s goal are threefold: To “change how we
participate in government by: - connecting citizens and governments to design
better services – encouraging low-risk settings for innovation; and –
supporting a competitive civic tech marketplace” (http://codeforamerica.org/about/#programs). They have four programs that are in
place. The first is the fellowship which
places developers, designers, and researchers in local governments for one year
that served 10 cities with 30 fellows in 2014.
Many apps have been developed through this program. The second program is the Brigade network
which consists of volunteers and government employees who work together during
“hack nights”, meet for discussions, and create apps as well. The third program is Civic Startups which
offers funding, mentorship, and networking to entrepreneurs whom have built new
apps or technology for government.
Finally, the fourth program that Code for America has created is the
Peer Network, where public servants can connect to share “civic tech resources,
best practices, and open data policies” (http://codeforamerica.org/about/#programs). Code for America has many public and private
funding partners that began with seed money from the Sunlight Foundation with
later funding from the Knight and Rockefeller Foundations. (http://www.fastcompany.com/1702210/how-army-techies-taking-city-hall)
So, what are some key things Code for
America has accomplished? Many of its
apps seem to be inspiring citizens to become more involved in government such
as the Adopt-a-Hydrant app which encourages citizens to dig out hydrants when
it snows or Seattle’s plans to have citizens “clear clogged storm drains” (http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/25/opinion/pahlka-code-government/). In addition, other technology to improve
government services has been developed such as Promptly, which sends reminder
text messages to food stamp recipients.
(http://www.modernluxury.com/san-francisco/story/debuggov).
Code for America is also said to have
inspired the Presidential Innovation Fellows program which is the same as their
fellowship program except it is now on the federal level. They have also published books about open
date standards and have become involved with Civic Commons, a different
nonprofit which helps governments share code and best practices in IT.
In the future, it looks as if Code
for America is expanding its presence to be international through running
fellowship programs in the Caribbean, Germany, and Mexico City and expanding
its Brigade and Peer Network. (http://www.codeforamerica.org/2013/05/23/cfas-first-international-partnerships/)
But most fundamentally, Code for America’s co-executive
director Abhi Nemani states tthe organization’s goal is to create a “ecosystem
of innovation” through sustainable startup businesses around the apps and open
data standards. http://www.govtech.com/data/Code-for-America-Innovation-Ecosystem.html). It is clear that Code for America seems to be
inspiring more cross-sector collaboration between the tech world and government
through their different intiatives. It
will be interesting to see the type of initiatives they do in the future and
whether they succeed.
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