and we'll dive a bit more into what Coding It Forward is and what we do there, but I've been with the organization since 2018. Yeah. And I've been with them ever since. I guess in in my day to day capacity, I run our operations and plan program structure for the two internships that we run at Coding It Forward. But I've been with the team for a few years now and excited to share a bit more about what we do and what we're up to and what my day to day looks like.

Yeah. That's a great question. You're gonna make me reflect a bit on this, I think. I would say and this this applies to my work with Coding It Forward, but I think a lot of the things that I involve myself with outside of Coding It Forward, I'd say my personal why is shortly to open doors for others. I think I feel very fortunate in my own life to have had a lot of really awesome people go before me who have opened doors to so many opportunities, Coding It Forward being one of them. And so, I think especially in my work with Coding It Forward, my my why and why I love this job is that it gives me the opportunity to open doors to other people, be that women. I'm Latina, so as much as I can open doors and for other Latinos and people, like myself and just others who I recognize just haven't had as much access to this space, I've stumbled upon this space quite, accidentally, which I'm sure you'll ask me about in a bit. But realizing how much people helped me get to where I am today as I think what I want to do for others. So really pulling people through doors and and giving them opportunities to do things they have not yet had the opportunity to do.

Yeah. How did it wind up is is something to to land on. I think it was a very windy. And I think, the more that you ask people in civic tech how they got there, it tends to be a trend. It's like I stumbled upon it or I fell into it, and and now I'm here. But let's see. It's kind of a a lengthy story, so I'll try to keep it short. I when I got to college, I wanted to study computer science, took the intro to CS class, and was quite intimidated and did not love it and decided that that wasn't really the path I wanted to walk down. The summer after my freshman year, I'm from Los Angeles. I came back home. Didn't have plans to intern or do anything. I was just gonna spend time with family. And my dad, shortly after my arriving back home, happened to run into someone in his office, I think, who he started chatting with and was like, ah, my daughter likes computers, and she's interested in doing tech things. And this guy was like, oh, like, cool. I'd love to have her as, like, an unpaid intern for the summer if she wants to join me. And I was coming home for the summer, and I was like, well, yeah. I may as well get some, like, job experience, I guess, and see what I'd like and what I don't like. So I was an unpaid intern, working in LA City Government on the Los Angeles open data portal. I was primarily working with the police department actually and working on the datasets that they have publicly accessible in Los Angeles, and it was not a glamorous work. I was basically just, like, populating metadata. Like, there was data up there, but no one knew how to use it. And I, like, quickly realized it was like, oh, like yeah. Like, they they publish this data, but, like, they don't have any they don't have an unpaid intern to do this kind of work. So it was, like, not glamorous work, but it felt really cool because, like, every time I pushed an upload, it was going to, like, a portal that people could actually access online. So did that internship, and my boss happened to know the women across the street literally at the Mayor's Office, his data team. And they had just started their inaugural data LA internship program, and so my boss got me into their program. So I met a lot of other young people doing data work in the city and met the wonderful women running the LA mayor's data team, and that was my introduction to Civic Tech. It sounds really wild now to be like, oh, I didn't know people were using technology in government, but, like, honest to god, I didn't I didn't know that that was something that people were doing. So I got back to campus, sophomore year and decided to study government with a minor in computer science now that I had kinda stumbled upon something I really enjoyed. And then a few months after getting back to campus, Coding It Forward, sent an email over a one of the cofounders sent an email over the mailing list, some mailing list I was on at school, saying, hey. We're Coding It Forward. We're looking to hire some more people. This is what we do. And I was like, hey. This is, like, very similar to what I was doing at the mayor's office. Sent them an email back, met one of the cofounders in the dining hall, was very much aligned with what they were doing and very interested, and the rest is kind of history. So that's how I ended up there. It was just weird. I fell into an internship, and and learned that people were using technology and government and then coding it forward was doing the same thing. And I've been with them ever since. So was not intentional, but, again, just meeting the right people and falling into places that led me to where I am. Yeah. That's the long the long story, I guess.

Yes. Perfect segue. Long story not long story short. I would say the mission of Coding It Forward is so that people don't have to have a winding path like I did. We were founded in 2017 by a group of college students who were looking to use their tech skills in government. The only thing they could find was installing Microsoft SharePoint on federal government computers as an unpaid intern. That was not what they wanted to be doing. Not interested in that at all. So we loosely started as kind of a jobs board group. People would share opportunities in the space with each other to use tech skills in the social good social impact space. And And then we were lucky enough to be introduced to someone at the US Census Bureau who actually was already doing work to bring young people into the census for the summer and thus became our now kind of well oiled machine, the civic digital fellowship. But, yeah, we were we were started by a group of tech students, and I think that's really awesome. I think we started, as young people who understood what young people were looking for and what kinds of things would excite young people and how a program could be shaped to fully support young people. And I think that that has really, led to, I guess, our success is just that we we understand what what people want and and how we might be able to provide that to them. So, yes, I guess, in short, the goal is so that people don't have to have a winding path like like I did. Like, the there now exists an organization where, like, if you want to use your tech skills in government, come to Coding It Forward. And and we have we have those opportunities for you.

Right. Definitely filling filling that gap. And I'd say it's been really awesome to watch. So we are founded in 2017, and the code of Code for America's of the world and those really big civic tech boards that have become, like, really institutional piece pieces of our our network existed. But you're right. There was no early career option, and it's been really awesome to just see the space explode a bit since our founding. Like, it's definitely still a lot of room to grow and a lot of gaps to still be filled. But, yeah, there was nothing in the ecosystem before, and and now there is. And that's been really awesome to see us kind of, lead that movement and that push for there to be accessibility for young people to do this work as well.

Yes. Definitely. Yes. And another a new program popping up into the space this past summer, so this 2021, was our first year running this Civic Innovation Corps program. So if you're interested in learning a bit more about the Civic Digital Fellowship, I will refer people to the podcast that you did with, with our one of our founders and some, some alum, in years past, but that is a ten week internship, in federal government for tech students. And so the civic innovation core is somewhat of a replica of that model, but we're bringing young people as, working in data, software engineering design, and product management to state and local governments across the country. So as I kind of explained my journey to civic tech and many people on, other people on our team also had similar journeys to civic tech or public service through state and local government. And so I think our team always wanted to dive into that space. We just didn't really have the capacity to do so. And I think when we started to have serious conversations about launching this program, it was right in the heart of 2020, as all of us were living through this pandemic, and there was just no better time for us to launch this program. So it it came out of partially that and realizing that there was no better time to bring technologists into state and local government public service, but then also state and local government just being really near and dear to our team's heart. So, yes, the Civic Innovation Corps is a ten week summer internship program for, and what's really cool, actually, I will add. So the federal government, we are high we are tied to federal hiring regulations. So there are some regulations that we have to follow in terms of education and, things and citizenship and things like that. So with the civic innovation courts open to undergraduate and graduate students as our federal program is, but we are also able to open it up to boot camp and certificate grads as well. And then for our federal program, we are unfortunately only able to hire US citizens. But with the Civic Innovation Corps, we are able to bring in non US citizens as well. So as long as people have work authorization, they can also be a part of our state and local program. So we are we placed let's see. We placed 55 civic innovation core fellows across six cities and three states this summer, and they were working at, I believe, 19 different offices across the country. And so we'll keep building that program out into the coming year. But, yeah, it's been really awesome to be able to to be now be able to place people at all levels of government because I think the civic tech movement exists at all levels of government, and there's a lot of really awesome work being done, at the state and local level, especially in the past nineteen months in in responding to COVID and all of that. So, some of our fellows were able to tap into that work and be a part of of the work, and happy to share a little bit more about that as we as we continue this conversation.

Yeah. I think our work has always been led by the belief that, like, we need as many perspectives and people involved in this work. That's how we do the best work. I will add that all of our cohorts, so this last civic innovation core cohort and the past, six fellowship cohorts that we've run have been majority female and majority people of color. And I think being able to open these opportunities up to boot camp and certificate grads has been really awesome for us as well because we believe that there's not, like, a one size fits all perfect person for the role. It's really, like, how many different people can we bring into this space to bring their perspectives to the table? And I I think you'll see time and time again studies and and cases in which, like, bringing those people to the table and having them involved in a project is just gonna make your project all the more better. So, yeah, it's been really awesome to be able to open up that opportunity, because yeah. I mean, if you wanna serve, you should have an opportunity to serve, and there shouldn't be a barrier for for anyone to do that. So, yeah, we're looking forward to keeping those opportunities open and making them as, open and accessible and equitable as possible.

Yeah. That's a great question. I would say it helped that we had already done, I think at that point, five iterations of our federal program. So there was at least a model and a proven successful model of bringing talent into government. Obviously, a bit different at a a different government level, but that helped. So we weren't starting, I think, from building blocks like we were when we launched the federal program, which was to our benefit. But it's a challenge to figure out, like, what components we were operating, and then the state and local level is completely different than the federal government, I think we've learned. And so it was a matter of figuring out, like, how are we gonna partner with these offices that we wanna partner with? There's a mutual interest, but, like, where do we find the funding, and, like, how do we legally hire these interns and place them for ten weeks? Right? Because it's not like a full time position. It's not like you're just hiring someone for a role. Like, we're placing them there for ten weeks. And so I think with anything that you're starting, any new initiative, like, asking for help is a big thing. So, like, we took what we knew with the federal program, and then we had a lot of really awesome people who had experience in the space. Maybe not the exact experience we were looking for, but, like, people we could lean on to, like, guide us in terms of, like, how do we navigate hiring interns in state and local government? And I will add that our partners who partnered with us for this first iteration of the program were also incredible. Like, we could not have done it without them because they were interested and eager and willing to do this in a time where, like, state and local governments were strapped. They didn't have as much personnel as they had before the pandemic, and they also just had so much to do. And so I'm so grateful to our partners for for being thought partners with us in in launching this. So, yeah, I mean, I'm happy to if you have more specific questions about, like, what it takes to to start something up, happy to answer them. But I would just say, in general, like and this is with anything. Like, ask for help. Ask ask people who have done this before. And, I mean, our team is fairly young in terms of, like, age. So, like, we also recognize that, like, there are people who have been at this work for many, many years. And so how can you lean on people who have already tried to go down this road so you're not reinventing the wheel or trying to do something that someone has already proven is not possible or cannot work.

Right. Yeah. I think you bring up an excellent point, and I think that's something when you go in, but you also learn as you're going through, like, oh, I could definitely just my full time job could be just dealing with, government partners and hiring practices, but that's a fully different conversation. How we went about sourcing partners. So our federal program and the civil civic digital fellowship had been going on for a couple of years, and the civic tech space can be pretty small once you start to learn, more about it. So we had definitely had state and local offices in the years before we launched this program who were interested in bringing on the types of fellows we placed in the federal government. So there was, like, a handful of people who had already expressed interest even when we didn't have the capacity to place people at the state and local level. So I think we started there because, like, you've already expressed interest. You've been interested in this. Hey. We're actually finally launching into state and local government. Do you wanna be involved? So that was one one group of people. And then in this first year, I think we really wanted to so, obviously, our programs are for young people. We wanna prioritize the experience of those young people that we're bringing in. I'd love to place a fellow in every single city and every single state across the country, but I also recognize that I don't wanna throw someone like, many of our our fellows, this is their first time ever working in government, and you don't wanna throw someone into a space, that is not going to be conducive to them learning or growing in the ten weeks that they're involved. So we started or at least prioritized in this first year offices who already had digital teams or who had technical team members who would be able to support our fellows. So we just did some and it's it's pretty easy to or I guess being in the civic tech space for a while, you start to learn kind of which offices are doing what and and who's a thought leader in the space. So we kind of started there as well as just what offices have we heard of, in our network and then reaching out to those offices. And, I mean, some offices didn't have the capacity, given what they were dealing with with COVID. So it was also just finding partners who even had a capacity to bring an intern on for the summer. But, yeah, starting with teams who had strong strong technical capacity to be able or at least the willingness to support technical fellows for the summer. And that's kind of where we started. And I'm I guess I can give you a bit of a peek behind the curtain because we're now heading in into the second year for this, but we're hoping to expand, into some new places as as we head into the new year of this program and just place people in in more states and more cities across the country and kinda diversify, the offices that we're placing people at now that we have a good sense of what we need to provide someone with a good experience. Like, how can we place someone on a team that might have a little bit less of a technical capacity but definitely has a need for a technical individual on their team. So we're exploring a bit of that as we head in as we head into this this next iteration of the program.

Yeah. Definitely. I mean, I think you'll find this all across the civic tech space is, like, storytelling is such a big part of everyone's work. And, yeah, that storytelling, having that track record of the really incredible and we owe it all to our fellows. Like, we bring them in, but, like, they're the ones doing their work, and they're the ones that have proved to our federal federal partners that they can do really odd. Because people are sometimes like, oh, ten weeks. Like, that's not a long time. Like, what can you do in ten weeks? And our fellows have just completely blown people's minds on, like, what they can really accomplish in ten weeks. So I think that was incredibly helpful. We're like, hey. We have done five iterations of this federal program. Like, here's what agencies at the federal level have to say about the work that these interns are doing. We want to replicate that at the state and local level. Like, are you interested, and are you game for kind of working with us through that? So, yeah, that storytelling was a a huge piece to be able to show what people had been able to accomplish at the federal level and say, like, we're we're trying to replicate this at the state and local level. Yeah. That's a a hue that was a huge part. And, again, we I just have to thank our our alumni for for really being awesome and incredibly talented people, for showing people that this is, like, necessary and also, like, helpful, that it's beneficial not only for our fellows, but it's also beneficial for the offices that that we're working with.

I would say with the state and, like, local program, this it's kind of working with the host office to find a good match or just making sure that they have support from us if they needed or kind of on a case by case basis. Right? Like, if they're willing to work with us, like, we're willing to work with them because we recognize, how beneficial it will be for a fellow to experience working on that team. But I would say we were so we were we sorry. We, we recruit across four areas of practice, so data, software engineering, design, and product management. And we have very, descriptive, like, role descriptions of each of those four categories that we showed to our applicants and also that we showed to our partners. And so that helps us get a really good match. Like, we need our applicants to come in with these kinds of skill sets. And then when our partners tell us, hey. We want one design fellow, they know what kinds of skill sets the people we're bringing in are going to have. And so in terms of screening partners, I would say, like, any I don't think I think every partner who is interested in working with us this summer was involved. And so it's really a matter of, like, okay. You have a data scientist on the team. Like, you'll be able to support a a data fellow, or you wanna bring in a PM and and your team doesn't have a PM, but you have a software engineer who's, like, familiar with what it takes to build a product or what it takes to road map, something. And so just kind of screening for that. But I think it's really just, like, a team that has even if they don't have, like, a data person for the data fellow they're trying to hire, like, a team who has the willingness to support young talent, I think, is first and foremost. Like, yes. We're screening for someone who can support a technical fellow, but, also, we really just wanna make sure that this team is, is excited to bring in new talent. And I think that was true for every single office that we've ever partnered with, in this first year is, like, these were people who really, like, want to invest in that pipeline and want to invest in early career talent. And that was really, really awesome to see just people having a willingness and an excited, excited energy to really just bring in the next generation of talent and kind of pass on their skills and their knowledge in the state and local space to those people. So I think that's that's where we started is, like, teams who were really excited about the work and bringing in bringing in young people. Continuing on that kind of recruitment of talent thread,

Yeah. A 100%. Yeah. We had, for this civic innovation core program, well over 1,500 applicants, which was wild, and I think just proves to everyone involved that there is no shortage of young people interested in this work. And so it's actually, like, it's sad for our team to have such a low acceptance rate because we recognize that there are so many really awesome and qualified people who want to do this work, which is why we're trying to expand the offices that we work with and just expand the offerings. But to your question of how we get to 55 from the 50 1,500, it's a so it starts with an online application. I believe it's, like, four short answer questions and a couple of other little questions in between. Folks apply, and then our team goes and and there's no algorithm reading through our applications. Like, real people read your application. It's about three readers, I think, per every application that gets submitted. And then, the applications are scored and and move into a pile. So a top group of candidates from that initial screening will move on to a behavioral interview with our team. That's not a technical interview. It's more just, like, do you have the skill sets that are required of the fellows we're recruiting? Like, are you someone who's going to be flexible and willing to cut through the red tape of government? Kind of screening for those things, recognizing that working in government can be a challenge, and you have to be someone who's willing to work through those challenges and kind of continue to, pick away at the problem. And then after that behavioral interview, another certain subset of individuals will move on to our referral process in which, we send three to four candidates per role that a host office is is hiring for. And then the host office kind of makes the final decision on on who they're selecting and who they want to extend an offer to. And then we extend an offer, and we land on the the 55 fellows that we had this this first summer. But the hope is to continue to expand our offerings into the future. And I think that's something that our team is, going to be working on for the next number of years, I think, into our future is, like, alright. We've got well over a thousand people every year after year who and that was just for the civic innovation core. We had well over a thousand applicants for the federal program as well last summer. So, year over year, young people are proving to us that, like, they wanna be doing this work. And, also, like, there are so many qualified people that we aren't able to play. So there's also just, like, an incredible number of really qualified individuals who want to work in public service and to serve, and we can't give them an opportunity. So I think Coding It Forward's long term goal is, like, we don't want to have to turn away anyone who has stepped up, to the call of public service. So, we're working on it. Their tiny team is is hoping to tackle that problem and continue to chip away at that problem.

Yeah. That's a a fantastic question. So we were really fortunate. Right? We wanted to launch this program in the midst of COVID when state and local governments did not have the funds to be bringing on fellows for ten weeks. And but we realized that this was a really critical time, and I think the partners who were interested in being involved also expressed to us that, like, there is no better time than now to bring in young people and and have them be a part of this work, be a part of, responding to COVID and also the recovery that would come, in the months that followed. So we accepted and acknowledged the fact that state and local government weren't we're not going to be able to pay for these fellows. For context, the way that our federal model works is that the federal government, does contribute for the cost of the fellow and our team's time and our contractor's time and whatnot. And so that that model was not going to work at the state and local level. So we're really, really fortunate, to be able to share the word about this idea and what we wanted to do with a number of funders and then had a lot of really incredible, incredible funders who, were excited about what we were trying to do and recognized how important it was to be doing it at the moment that we were. And so we were able to bring in a number of people and and get them involved, including the Knight Foundation, Schmidt Futures, the Ford Foundation, a lot of really awesome, awesome individuals who many of whom had had been funders of Coding It Forward previously to this program and and believed in the work that we were doing and believed that this new initiative was something worth investing in. And so, yeah, the first, first iteration of the Civic Innovation Corps was entirely philanthropically funded. So we cannot say thank you enough to the funders who were involved, in this this first year. And the hope moving forward, it will still be philanthropically funded for some amount moving forward, but the goal is to be able to work towards more of a a cost sharing model and and have, state and local offices kind of have a stake in a game in the game. And and we just wanna make sure that and really the priority is to make sure that this program is sustainable into the future. So we recognize that, philanthropic funding will not be the way that we can make this a sustainable, program moving many, many years into the future. So we're working with our partners, to find a way to make this a sustainable program into the future. And, again, like, I can't express this enough. Like, our partners have been incredible, incredible thought partners in how we can really institutionalize this program in the offices that we're working. And so we're currently working with, host offices to to find a way to make this program more sustainable. But, yeah, cannot thank philanthropy enough and the funders that funded us to allow us to prove out this model at the state and local level. I think that was, like, the big thing. The investment allowed us to prove that this model was also going to be successful at the state and local level and prove that, the work isn't necessary and that that young people can really do amazing things at the state and local level as well.

So much. I think we did really, robust debriefs with our partners and also with the fellows who are involved in this first year to hear about their experience. And I think all of that proved to us that it was beneficial on both sides. I think students were it was just, I think, really cool to be able to see so many of our fellows be involved in the COVID recovery efforts that were happening at the state and local level. Like, that was just really awesome work for people to be involved in and especially since it was many of their first times working in government, like, what a really incredible, what a really incredible, like, problem and area to be working on. So I think the work was very fulfilling on the fellow's side, and I'll share a little bit about kind of the things that they worked on. And then on the host office side, like, again, like, they were just so excited to be bringing young people into the fold and have a way to I think it it can be difficult, and I think this is across all levels of government to hire. Hiring is a huge, problem area, and especially for young hires. Like, it's hard to bring someone in that's gonna be a little that's going to need a little bit more training or a little bit more development. Right? Like, especially when state and local teams are so small. Like, if you can hire someone, it's probably not going to be the junior level person who doesn't have that many skills because you just can't afford to. Like, you need to bring someone in who's further along who can really just, like, tackle things and be in the weeds. And so I think a lot of our partners were really excited about, like, this ten week way to introduce people to the work, bring them into the fold, and hopefully convince them that this is something worthwhile and investing in their future. And I will say one really exciting thing is that we had three Civic Innovation Corps fellows actually stay on full time, after their internship program. So one of our fellows, Bryson, worked, in Utah. He's from Utah, so he's staying with, the Utah governor's office of planning and budget and, will be working at that office, which is really awesome. We had someone stay on in Miami. And then we had another fellow, Joey, stay on in the city of Boston with their citywide analytics team as, I believe, a data scientist or data analyst. And, like, I I'm pretty sure. I'm almost a 100% positive that it was Joey's first time in government. And so it was, like, really awesome to see that he went through our program and then, like, first full time job was with the city and, like, that that was just, like I mean, three out of 55 does not sound like a lot in a number, but, like, if you have the context of, like, what it's like to hire full time hires in government and also, like, junior level talent, like, so exciting for our team to be able to see that, play out. So I would say that was one really exciting thing. And then just the projects and the things that people were working on, I think, were really awesome to see them get plugged into the work that was happening at the state and local level. We had a team of two working with the Los Angeles mayor's data team. They were analyzing the city's procurement opportunities for inequality and its awards. So, like, how the how the city awards, procurement and how equitable that process was. And it was the first attempt to do so in over twenty years. So they're literally doing something that the city had not been able to do for twenty years, and, like, that number just blew my mind. Like, we brought two people in who were able to work in this office and do this analysis for the first time in twenty years. It was really awesome to see. There was a team of four in Utah building out a new performance measurement portal. Again, like, not the most glamorous thing in the world, but, like, this was something that, like, Utah government needs to measure their performance metrics. And so that team was able to build out that that structure from the ground up, which is really cool. But, yeah, a lot of really awesome a lot of some projects. I think someone else, was working on kind of packaging and cleaning data and building maps, which, like, culminated in this vaccine outreach helper. So it was displaying all the vaccine case mortality and testing data for the city. And so all of those like, her stuff was publicly accessible on the web. I think that might have also been in Los Angeles. So, like, the and I'm I live in Los Angeles. So to be able to, like, go on the website and go on the portal and realize that one of my fellows had contributed to that was just, super cool. So they were they were doing some pretty high level stuff and stuff that was very directly affecting constituents' day to day lives in in the cities and states that these fellows were working in.

opportunity. I've got my own little sound bites now.

Perfect timing that we are recording this. Our applications for both the Civic Innovation Corps program, which we are speaking about today, and our Civic Digital Fellowship program, which I was have been referring to. Both of those applications will be opening on 01/03/2022. So now, like, not even, I guess, a month because today is yeah. It's a month away. So those applications will be opening, and they'll be open, for approximately three to four weeks. So they'll be closing by the January. But if you're listening to this podcast, you're gonna be a step ahead because you'll know when that is happening. And I'm I will quickly shortly just kinda give, an overview of, like, who can apply because I think I always forget to mention that. I get so caught up in the word, but it's for young people. And so, folks who have never worked in government, there's no education requirement in terms of, like, you study computer science or you study data. We've had art history majors and English majors be involved in our program. So as long as you have the skill sets that we're looking for, please, please apply. And, again, the federal program, undergrad and grad students, our state and local program, undergrad, grad students, and then boot camp and certificate grads as well. So, we're really looking forward to that application launching. I cannot even believe that we're heading into applications for our 2022 programs. So, yeah, please apply. We're really, really excited for our second cohort of civic innovation core fellows, and we'd love to to see your application and and see you be a fellow. Hopefully, we're increasing our our acceptance rate, with a few more placements. We're working on it. I promise. And I would say that aside from our programs, Coding It Forward also has a newsletter and a Facebook group. And so we have a community outside of our programs, and we share a jobs and internships newsletter every two weeks. So lots of opportunities and internships and jobs that we share out that are not just our own programs because we recognize that there are so many of you who wanna get involved, and there's still some gaps in the opportunities that are available. So as much as we can help you find the right opportunity for you, we are totally game.

Everything, all things Coding It Forward at codingitforward.com, ww.codingitforward.com. And then another great place to just see what we're up to is social media. So we're, all handles at coding it forward, especially Twitter. If you're on Twitter, join us on Twitter. I will say that, when people ask, like, how do I learn more about civic tech? Like, Twitter is kind of the weird suggestion. Like, people in civic tech love to tweet. So if you're new to the space, my number one suggestion is Twitter. Follow us and then follow the people we're following, and you'll probably have a good good tap on what's happening in Civic Tech. But, yes, .com. There's a link to subscribe to our newsletter at the bottom of the website. And so if you wanna be the first to know exactly when the application goes live, be sure to sign up for that newsletter, and and you'll get the email and and the links to apply. But everything will be on that website in the in the weeks to come.

and tell us about this, program that's been going on. And, I just totally used those word program twice in a row, which is totally great. But, seriously, thank you for so much for coming on and talking with us about the Civic Innovation Corps. Yes. Thank you for having me, and and thanks for having Coding It Forward twice now, for a new program. Maybe we'll launch another program, and then, we can share details. We don't have another program in the works. Please don't say energy as efficient. We're trying to get through the next iteration of our programs. But, no, thank you so much for having us. This has been really wonderful, and, always happy to to share the word about what we're up to.

Oh, baby. Guest card. A 100%.