10 Voices Of Summit
Civic Tech Chat was at The [Code for America](https://codeforamerica.org) Summit in Oakland California! This week we feature a series of 18 interviews with folks at the event. We talk about what they're working on, what civic tech means to them, and critically... what brigade sticker they fancy.<br><br>##### Music Credit: [Tumbleweeds by Monkey Warhol](http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Monkey_Warhol/Lonely_Hearts_Challenge/Monkey_Warhol_-_Tumbleweeds)
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- sticker 0.012
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- best sticker 0.010
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Transcript
Hello. I'm Ryan Cook, and this is Civic Tech Chat, a podcast about the civic technology movement. We seek to harness the power technology has to improve the delivery of public services to people everywhere. Welcome to another episode of Civic Tech Chat. This is week two of our summit focused content. And for this one, we have something special. During summit, I went around and collected short interviews from folks that were attending the event. There are folks from all kinds of diverse locations, brigades, working on a wide array of projects, and from a wide array of different backgrounds. Now, usually, I would do some sort of prompt for the sort of content, some sort of overview of the event, why we were all there. But I think perhaps this time, we'll leave it to, Jill to, start us off and give us all of that information. So let's go ahead and hop right in.
We're at Code for America's, summit. It is the second annual summit representing the Brigade Network, which is the volunteer arm of Code for America and, really the national movement, that it has sparked across, the country and the world. We, the brigades represent, about 65 cities and, we come together for three days. To one day is just the brigades, and then there's two days with the summit. And talk about, civic tech, how we're doing good, what are better how we're screwing up, what are best practices. It is an amazing experience of being able to connect with other, people that are that think like you and that are basically your tribe. You just don't know they're your tribe until they show up. For me, it is very much an equal parts exhausting and energizing. The exhausting wears off when I get home because I sleep, and the energized floats me for months. But the the main thing about coming to Summit and the reason why it is so important is because, we're dispersed over the whole over the whole country. There's no better way for us to connect and build relationships than to do it in person. These connections and these relationships will make it so much easier for our brigade leaders and members to reach out to each other when they have a question in their respective cities. And that doesn't, you you know, that can't be matched anywhere. There's no electronic tool that can ever make up for that personal connection and what we gain from that later.
So can you tell us your name, where you're from, and what you do?
Hi. I'm, Jill Bierse. Most people call me Jillsy because they can't say the last name. And, I am from Charlotte, North Carolina. I am the, brigade captain there. I also, am privileged to sit on the Code for America National Advisory Council. This year I get to serve as a chair. And, yeah.
What is the why that drives your involvement in civic tech?
I I truly believe, in my heart of hearts that there's no there's no stronger social justice cause than fixing our government. It is the umbrella across all of more strides we make towards making a more efficient, more open, transparent government, the more we're able to address other social causes.
Can you tell us about a project that you're currently working on?
Yeah. So right now, I'm working on, a reentry hub for, that will serve the North Carolina, formerly incarcerated population. We're working with both the, private, public private partnership with different resource providers as well as the county and the city, governments and the police force. We are, what we're doing is building a, interactive road map that allows people who have been formerly incarcerated to go through and, pick the services and the needs that they need with an with a look at what the the future ends like. So the first thing I ask them is, what does your re successful reentry look like? Do you, you know, do you need a job? Entrepreneurial training? Are you interested in better financial literacy? Are you interested in, you know, is housing important to you? Is transportation important to you? And then we can take that, and it will pick out different resources that you need and help make a a viable roadmap for you to, see the path ahead of you and know what resources are there and what you need to accomplish to make it there.
And the term civic tech, what does it mean to you?
So civic tech, that's always a really hard one to define because, it doesn't have a good definition. For me, civic tech is anything that changes the way we fundamentally interact with our government services, whether that be through technology, through policy, through advocacy, those are all forms of civic tech.
What would you say is your superpower? And how do you use it in your involvement with civic tech?
So my superpower is I can translate developer into English and English back into developer. I'm very good at herding cats and speaking their language. So, it makes it easier for I I talk like a developer. People think that I'm a developer. I am not. I married one and I spawned one, and that's pretty much my development cred. But, I'm constantly around them in my work life and in my home life. So I understand their language. I understand what they're doing, and it makes it easier for me to translate theirs their skills into, actionable things for other developers to do.
And now this might be the the most difficult question I've asked you so far, but which brigade, in your opinion, has the best sticker?
I am fascinated with the idea that anybody said anything other than their own brigade. Oh, there's quite a resistance to saying their own brigade. Oh, mine is definitely my own. Nice. So today, it's official that we changed, code for Charlotte It's officially open Charlotte Brigade, and that name change was announced this morning. And, in light of that, we designed new stickers, which if you ask me, down on the table downstairs with all those stickers is easily the best looking sticker. It incorporates both our city, skyline as well as, sun rays coming up and our logo with a new name, that very much iterates. We left in the the tag brackets from in the logo from our the previous, which signify our commitment to technology and, what that can mean for our city, but with a broader focus on community.
Nice. And I have to say, having seen the sticker as well, it is a really impressive one. Even though, I will say I do have a bias for skyline based stickers, but, it is definitely a great design.
Much better than the beta NYC one.
Could you tell us your name, where you're from, and what you do?
Hi. I'm Cyrus Sethna. I am a digital service expert with the United States Digital Service hailing from Washington, DC. What up brigade are you involved with? So I cofounded Open Uptown with you, with Ryan Cook. Open Uptown is a Code for America brigade in Chicago, Illinois, and I am transitioning to be involved as a community member with Code for DC.
What is the why that drives your involvement in civic tech? So I have been a technologist,
since since I was a little kid. Right? My mom's a software engineer, always encouraged me to do little, you know, hobby projects on the weekends and, on in my summer breaks. And I'm also a public servant, right, by profession. I love the intersection in our movement between technology and what is possible in our world and, the impact of public service.
Can you tell us about a project you're working on?
Sure. So right now, with the US Department of Health and Human Services, we are working to evangelize an API first strategy. So we're working really hard to convince the government in the value of not maintaining large bloated, legacy systems with tons of technical debt, but instead build a minimalistic, robust APIs that we can, use to empower the industry, the market to, build applications for different use cases.
What is your superpower and how do you use it for civic tech?
I think my civic tech superpower is going to be listening. I think active listening. And that's not necessarily a technical skill. Right? But it's something that I learned in Peace Corps when you're trying to do behavior change work, which is primarily what civic tech is. There's a need to listen actively to needs and concerns and even fears
that, government partners have, in order to get things done. Alright. And lastly, which brigade has the best sticker in your opinion?
Definitely Open Uptown. We have an amazing logo using the angle brackets inspired by Code for America's logo, logo, with a skyline of the city of Chicago. And in the background, a very amazing art deco eagle that adorns the Uptown Post Office station.
Nice. You even know the story behind it. I sure do. So could you tell us your name, where you're from, and what you do?
I'm Chris Gibbon. I am from Washington DC where I work with the US Digital Service, transforming technology at the VA.
And what is the why that drives your involvement in civic tech?
What is the why? Look, at at the end of the day, you you talk to someone and they tell you their story about how they have interacted with government. And there's so much that goes into that. So so many people work behind the scenes to make a a government service possible. And there are so many small problems throughout that process that could really transform it to be better for the people at, you know, who are consuming it. And so at the end of the day, my why is I hear their stories and I want to understand what's going wrong for them inside government. Nice. And can you tell us about a project that you're working on? So I work on a team at the VA that's working on a project called appeals modernization. If you're a veteran who has a disability that's connected to your time and service, you can apply for disability compensation benefits. But if you are not satisfied with VA's decision on your claim, you can appeal that decision. And you enter a process that will last five years at minimum before you talk to a judge. And veterans describe it to us as a black hole. They don't know have any information about what's happening during those years that they wait. And so we re released a tool called appeal status that shows the veteran where they are in line and allows them to understand what's happening and, you know, what actions they can take and what they need to do. What does civic tech mean to you? Civic tech for me is about the combination of, a diverse set of backgrounds, people who understand policy, people who understand design, people who understand activism and engineering and cartography and the law, putting all those pieces together in order to create a more superpower is taking data and finding a way to make it more accessible and more useful to more people.
Awesome. And the last question, perhaps the most divisive, which brigade here has the best sticker?
Absolutely. Code for DC, 100%. There is no question.
Oh, I like a strong opinion. Thank you so much. Alright. So first, can you tell us your name, where you're from, and what you do?
So my name is Nehemiah Dacris. I am the co captain of the Saint Louis Brigade known as OpenSTL.
Nice. And, Nehemiah, you've been on the program before? Yes. But, we'll go over this again. What is the why that drives your involvement in civic tech?
I think governments well, our government, particularly local governments, their invisibility causes cities to get stuck in a rut and allow themselves to get run down because they're not completely engaged with their citizens.
Can you tell us us about a project that you're working on? Yes.
My, our brigade is currently working on a, software to visualize our vacant housing, like graph it, map it. And, should I tell you the progress of it? Go for it. So, we've actually gotten two prototypes. Yeah. It's funny enough because we held a hackathon. We kept working after the hackathon, which is fills me with glee. One, worked directly with our land, housing association, land bank, basically, who, technically is a company the organization owns our bank bank housing. They work with, one of our hackers to create a visualization, and they identified, a act a a well, ace level work, basically. They identified someone who's been a terrible landlord allowing the city to run down and then a drain on the city. They were going to they allow the city to action. Yeah. No problem. They've given the city a call to action, which is basically the best part of visualizations and its wire grab to identify trends.
And now what does civic tech mean to you?
To me. When you leverage technology to solve civic issues.
Lastly, in your opinion, which brigade has the best sticker?
Top of the river.
I actually really like code for Canada's like, it speaks to me because it's a directed it's a it's a graph that turned into a leaf, like a maple leaf, which is something sort of taken a data structure and, well, they've taken a flag and made it into a data structure. So I like that. Nice. I think that one's pretty cool also. Yeah.
Can you tell us your name, where you're from, and what you do?
Hi. My name is Ezana Luiza. I'm from Florianopolis, South Of Brazil, and I'm a software developer and the founder of Code for Floripa. Floripa is the nickname of the city called Florianopolis.
And, what is the why that drives your involvement in civic tech?
The why for me is something about love. I think that I can I have to give first, and then the university will give me back in a loving way? I mean, I think that is it's it's a way of use my technology tasks to improve the world and act with love.
Nice. I really like that answer. And, can you tell us about a project that you're working on? Mhmm.
We are working on a lot of projects, but one of the most important, is called, Firecast. The Firecast is an app that make the link between the firefighters and the society. It's a way to assess the data and the occurrence that are going on in a easier way. Very cool.
Let's see. And what does the term civic tech mean to you?
For me, civic tech means use technological resource to solve civil problems. Nice.
What is your superpower, and how do you use it for civic tech?
I think that my superpower is a way of building bridge between the feelings of people and society pain to technological stuff. And I used to I use my superpower in code for Florida, just helping the society to technology.
So could you tell us your name, where you're from, and what you do?
I'm Vishnu. I'm a student at UNC Chapel Hill. I'm originally from Atlanta, Georgia, and I'm one of the co captains of Code for Chapel
Hill. Awesome. What is the why that drives your involvement in civic tech?
So I think technology is inherently a political force. So if you're thinking about how, technology kind of speciate speciates in our environment, you're inherently making political decisions. Right? So, like, if you decide to use the Internet to communicate, you're centralizing all communication. Right? And so I think, having more voices represented, in that creation process is important, and I think civic technology is an important way of doing that. Oh, that's a keen observation.
Can you tell us about a project that you're working on?
So we're working on a couple of different projects at our brigade. We're a pretty new brigade, so we're kind of, like, testing out the waters by going into a lot of different spaces. But the one that I've been pretty involved with, is this measure the future project. And so we're using, basically, like, a Raspberry Pi, HD webcams, and infrared sensors to do usage tracking in libraries and parks because those kinds of sensors are actually really expensive for municipalities to buy. So if we can kind of do a DIY version of it, it would be pretty helpful. And so we're using that open source, Measure the Future project and kind of implementing it for Chapel Hill. Wow. And if I could ask a follow-up on that, what has your, I guess, relationship been like with your partners as you've been trying to put that together with them? So our main partner in this has been the town in Chapel Hill itself. So we've been working with the deputy chief data officer, who is, like, pretty plugged into the community. And so he's been really, really helpful in, like, helping us procure, equipment and, like, talk to the right people. So, pretty great, I would say.
Awesome. And what does civic tech mean to you?
I think it's about bridging the public private divide in technology. So we're near Silicon Valley, you know, private sector is doing a lot of great work with technology, but it civic technology is a matter of bringing that into the public sector and making our government work with it better.
And what would you say is your superpower,
and how do you use it in your work in civic tech? So I think, thus far in my undergraduate career, I've focused on bridging kind of the liberal arts and STEM. And I I think my superpower, if you wanna call it that, is being that kind of bridge, and, like, helping both sides communicate with each other better. And last, a a pretty critical question.
Which brigade here has the best sticker?
So we're actually talking about this at our table. There's this brigade with a balloon and these, like, tags on the end. And I don't know what brigade it is, but I'd like to find out. I really like the graphic design.
Well, if you figure that out, you're gonna have to let me know. Yeah. Definitely. Will do.
Hello there. Can you tell us your name, where you're from, and what you do? So I'm Dylan. I'm a student at UNC Chapel Hill, and I'm from there, the Raleigh area, the Triangles.
Nice. And what is the why that drives your involvement in civic tech?
So I think if you think about the idealistic government and kind of the ideal image of democracy, it's something that would be impossible without technology. So, things the technology is a way to connect people, and you need a fully connected society to have a well functioning government.
And can you tell us about a project that you're working on?
Yeah. So I'm actually trying to adapt, the adopt a drain project that, has been done by Code for San Code for San Francisco and a lot of, other brigades, just as kind of a starter project to get our brigade off the ground since we're starting in.
Awesome. And, what does civic tech mean to you?
Civic tech is government. So it it's the new form of government. I I think if you're doing government without technology, it it's outdated, and it's just an update, for, the government around the world.
And what would you say is your superpower, and how do you use it in your involvement in civic tech?
I think my superpower is just figuring things out. So I I find myself in a lot of situations where I really don't know anything about the task at hand. And, I think and it's not really a superpower specific to me, but something that anybody can do. If you just kind of put your head down and, think long enough about any problem, you can solve it. So there's no there's no problem too large in government or in technology for, a brigade to solve. So
And last but perhaps most important, which brigade has the best sticker?
That's a that's a hard one. I I've seen this really interesting sticker that's like a graph, like a fully connected graph. And I have no idea what brigade it belongs to, but I think it's, a nice, like, it's like a mix of art and technology. So, you know, it's a graph that you'd see in, like, your computer science class, but it's also very well designed.
That sounds really cool. So could you tell us your name, where you're from, and what you do?
I'm Avi Farau, and I'm from Saint Louis. And, I'm a computer science student.
Awesome. And what is the why that drives your involvement in civic tech?
Well, I started off just as a normal tech student, and one of my friends from high school, we were talking, and he said that he actually hated our city because he was tired of it or there were some issues that we were we were facing, and he wanted to move out. And that was kind of my outlook for a while. I was kinda bored and stuff. And I realized that instead of trying to move out and spending a lot of money just and then spending time rebuilding your network, in a different city, it's, I figured I would fix my problems in in my own city and, and improve improve my my my, I guess, state of living that I whatever I wanted and, and help improve
It sounds like you're putting a lot of passion into kind of improving from inside the tent. Yeah. Is that an accurate Yeah. Right. I feel like tech just,
can help a lot, you know, a lot of especially now that we're we're always on computers and stuff. So, yeah. I just wanted to see if I can help
change and improve our lives. Yeah. And, can you tell us about a project that you're working on?
Right now, we're working on a, vacant housing visualization project. We're we're amassing all of the vacant housing and the foreclosed homes within the city, all the data from from the city from, different sources. And we're amassing a map or some type of, I guess, database, so that it's easily accessible to people who are interested in buying property or, repopulating the the city.
And what does civic tech mean to you?
Civic tech means that, we are using technology in any way to help, offer and, I guess, easily access, services offered by the government, especially the local government.
And what would you describe is as your superpower, and how do you use it in civic tech?
My superpower, I think that, I would, say would be, I guess, networking, is one of the superpowers is, where, you know, getting talking to the right people and getting getting the slow moving, you know, multiple parts of government going to really, really push for the change that we need
desperately. So that's something our That is a good super superpower to have around a brigade for sure. Yeah. And, my last question for you, perhaps the most important one, which brigade do you think has the best sticker?
Best sticker? Well, does it is it just sticker design, or is it sticker, like, in already printed? Dealer's choice. Okay. However you want to evaluate it. Because I I I'm gonna have to go with the home the home field here. I think that our our our sticker we haven't really printed them yet, but our stickers are pretty cool. I also do I also like, Dayton, Ohio's.
Their stickers are pretty cool as well. Oh, yes. Yeah. Those are
pretty cool. Yeah. And, could you describe what what yours is, I guess, going to look like? Yeah. Ours is,
oh, I forget what it's it's called. It's like the crest of Saint Louis, within curly braces.
Oh, very cool. Yeah.
I dig it. Yeah. So that's kinda that's our that's our logo.
Can you tell us your name, where you're from, and what you do?
My name is Amenity Applewhite. I'm working for the city of Austin. I'm a product manager of our new website, austin.gov.
What is the why that drives your involvement in civic tech?
I was in community neighborhood activism. I was doing a lot, there. Was super frustrated technology that I ran into, and I just decided that, I should be a part of the solution. So I went to went to work at the city.
Can you tell us a bit about a project that you're working on? Yeah. I mean, we're obsessing over the austin.gov
website, and, we're in alpha stage right now. Our priorities on the site, are hand translated content, which is something that no other city that I know of is doing. Instead of using Google Translate, which we have, tested with residents, and they actually say it's useless to them. They would rather just have the site in English. We are sending all of our content to contractors to be translated. So that's one of the high points of it. But mostly, we're just working as a small team, putting things out there, testing, and bringing it right back.
What does civic tech mean to
you? I actually looked that term up the other day for, for a talk or a paper or something I was writing. And, you know, it it goes if you look at Wikipedia, it it kinda goes way back and goes back to technology in the civic realm. But really when I think of civic tech, I remember a coworker of mine, brigade captain of Open Austin or Brigade, saying, right after the election saying, you know, civic tech is is so young. This is our first presidential election, and he was just kind of trying to give us a pep talk. And so I've always thought, yeah, it is really young. Because you think of, like, when 18 f came out and, like, you know I mean, really, we're having this kind of energy in government, is is totally new. So when I think of civic tech, I think of maybe there's other things that applies to technically, but I think of this movement.
What would you say is your superpower, and how do you use it for civic tech?
I think I ask a lot of questions, and I talk to whoever I can and try to connect people with each other because that helps people solve problems faster and, just try to bring enthusiasm to what I'm doing and always think about the people that we're serving. Can you tell us your name, where you're from, and what you do?
Hi. I'm Greg, and I live in DC, but I've also lived in Providence and Philly. And I am in both involved with Code for DC, and I work on the Open Cities team at the Sunlight Foundation.
What is the why that drives your involvement in civic
tech? Good question. You know, if I'm interested in, you know, this kind of tech stuff, it's like, I don't know, like, I could be working for some, company to figure out how to sell more ads, or I could be doing stuff that's, like, trying to improve people's lives. And so I I it seems kinda like an easy choice to me, but, yeah.
It sounds like what you're describing as sort of like that statement on those Code for America stickers floating around that's like build something that matters or Yeah. Something like that. Is does that capture your sentiment? It does.
I would not wanna do something that I don't feel matters. And it's it's challenging for me because I think, you know, it's it's all Kind of saying that kinda sounds like I'm painting a lot of the world that's not mattering. When I think it does, you know, like I think I don't know. Like restaurant service. Like they're doing something that matters because like like service, then there's no restaurants, you know? Or, like, you know, all sorts of different cogs and all the machines out there. And so, you know, I have tremendous respect for, you know, the vast majority of of things in the world and I I think most things that people do in the world create value. But I guess, so I guess really, to me, it's it's sort of a more, I guess, sort of systems level or change level that I'm interested in. Yeah.
Yeah. Awesome. And, can you tell us about a project that you're working on?
Yeah. So, so one interesting thing, I it's sort of like a meta project, which is redesigning the code for DC website. So we it needs a lot of, it needs a significant update of its content, and it also could use a better design. We're looking for the website to be less outdated, more informative, less I think we think it's a little bit intimidating right now. Just more clear, more easy to find stuff. And so, you know, it's funny because, you know, when you hear about, like, what's your civic tech project, it's usually like a, you know, an actual thing related to a thing, and this is, like, meta for the other civic civic tech stuff. But, you know, it's it's important, you know, figuring out you know, enhancing the process of getting people in the door is important for people's ability to do all those other projects.
Absolutely. I'm I'm glad you mentioned a a a meta project because you put it like that. Those types of things keep groups running. So that's really important. So what does civic tech mean to you? Oh, boy.
Well, there's definitely a a technology part. I think the tricky part more is, like, what's you know, what does the civic part mean? You know, is is civic tech, you know, is it government technology? Is it people in the community doing tech stuff for a certain purpose? And if so, which purpose? And I think it's I don't know. I think it's a vague broad term that can encompass all of those things. So it could be, you know, a volunteer group doing tech stuff for you know, to something that's aimed directly at other people in the community. It could be helping out a nonprofit. It could be helping out a government. It could be something going on inside of government. Potentially, it could even include tech stuff related to advocacy, maybe. Yeah. I think it I think it's broad.
Alright. Perhaps the most important question of all.
Which brigade has the best sticker? Well, obviously, the answer is my home brigade code for DC. And part of that is because our so our our brigade sticker or slash our logo is the, the same sort of brackets that you see with a lot of the other, logos and stickers, and in the middle is the DC flag. And the key part here is that DC tied with maybe Chicago has the best city flag flag in the country. Actually, most city flags are terrible. There's a great TED talk about city flags. Incredible. You should watch it. And so we take our awesome city flag and then, you know, put brackets and yeah. And, you know, I've had lots of people I've got lots of stickers on my laptop. Lots of people, they see all the stickers and they say, oh, like, I really like this one with the DC flag and the brackets. Like, what's that? So if that's any indication, that is the best one.
That's an excellent choice, and I think our Chicago audience members are gonna really appreciate that that shout out for their flag as well. Yeah. Thank you. Yep. And for this one, we'll be with Michael, my, brigade buddy for Summit. Michael, could you tell us, your name, where you're from, and what you do?
I'm Michael. I'm from Open Oakland. I am a retired software developer, and I'm part of the leadership team at Open Oakland.
What would you say is the why that drives your involvement in civic tech?
Well, since I retired, I've been involved in, volunteering in many aspects of the city. And, Open Oakland allows me to volunteer doing coding, which is what I did for my all of my career.
Can you tell us about a project that you're working on?
I'm mostly working on, Open Disclosure, which is a campaign finance project. We we disclose the campaign finance information for the city of Oakland. Yeah.
What does civic tech mean to you?
Civic tech is, technology that helps people get, information about and interact in better ways with their government.
No. I What would you say is your superpower, and how do you use it for civic tech?
I don't know that I have a superpower for civic tech. I I, you know, I guess it's just my general interest and my avail time availability.
So Being available, I think, is a superpower as well. Alright. So perhaps this is the most critical question I have on the list. Which brigade has the best sticker?
Oh, the best, best best sticker. Well, of course, it's not here because Open Oakland didn't provide one, but I do have an Open Oakland sticker and, of course, that's the best one, although we only had a limited number. So
Can you tell us your name, where you're from, and what you do?
Hi. I'm Julia. I'm from Osnabruck, which is a very small city in Germany. And there, I'm member and also Lab Lead. We call it Open Knowledge Labs in Germany. And I try to figure out what is open data that we can get in Osnabruck and in Germany and what we can do with it because we are right at the start, found it however you go, and now I'm glad to be here at Code for America Summit to find out what you can do with open data and to find out ideas for new projects.
Wow. That's incredible. Can you tell us what is the why that drives your involvement in
civic tech? I studied German studies in Germany and also sociology, and I think it's very often kind of embarrassing how few people know about technical things, and they often see computers or IT systems as dangers and not as tools who can help solving problems. And I think we can change those people minds to make more visible what tools and technical things could help to improve society.
Nice.
And, can you tell us about a project that you're involved with?
Well, I'm just trying out to adapt projects from other code four labs in Germany to Osnabruck. We just worked a little bit on the budget planning. Can you say that in English? About the money that our city has and what it does with it. And there's also a new project, which is from Okay Lab Karlskru, which is another city in Germany. They, try to visualize all those farm shops and what they sell and what where you can buy what and how you you can pay. And I think that's a really good thing to make open data more visible and show people how to use them practically in their everyday life. So very small projects, but maybe with an impact in the end. That's really cool.
And what does the term civic tech mean to you?
I think it's the combination of the needs of people, so of problems in the society and technical solutions. So trying to figure out how technical systems can help you and, I mean, help the people. That's it. Nice.
What would you say is your superpower and how do you use it in your involvement with Civic Tech?
Oh, I think my superpower is helping people and explaining things because I like working, and I like figuring out how things work, and I like explaining people and showing them how to do things so that they don't have to do so much work on their own, which was maybe too much because I like doing it. So superpower may be helping.
Nice. That is a much needed superpower in our space. Alright. So this is, perhaps the most divisive question that we have on here. It's the hard one. It's the hard ball. Which brigade here has the best sticker in your opinion?
Oh, I collected yesterday so many stickers. I don't know. I really can't say code for America because it's code for America and it combines everything
maybe. Okay. Nice. That's that's a good safe answer
there. It is. Yeah. Let let me think about I think, really, those code for America stickers with do stuff that matters. So don't do anything just because it's possible and you feel cool with it, but really try to find problems most. And do something. So those encouraging stickers from Code for America. Is it okay?
Yes. That's a good answer. That's a good answer. I like it. Those are good stickers. Can you tell us your name, where you're from, and what you do?
I'm David Ginsberg. I'm the brigade captain for Open Data Delaware, and I'm from Delaware. And, when I'm not working on brigade business, I'm actually a civic tech consultant. So I work in the same space that I volunteer in.
What is the why that drives your involvement in civic tech?
So for me, being involved in civic tech is a way to leverage some of what I've done in the past with, software development or, with other technical projects in a way that can directly impact people, can directly help, to improve the way that we are serving our fellow citizens, and sometimes in a selfish way to help the way that I'm receiving services from government, community organizations, etcetera.
Can you tell us about a project that you're working on?
So right now, we have a project in Delaware. The Delaware School Choice program is, the system by which, the school choice program is, the system by which parents of school age children can send their kids to a school outside of their normal feeder pattern, their school district. And it's a little bit messy because you can literally send your child to any school in the state if you choose to use the school choice program. So we're creating, Delaware School Choice Sherpa, which is being used or is targeted to help parents navigate, at first, the charter school system and then the the whole school system for the state of Delaware to understand what are the strengths and weaknesses of each school, what kinds of services are offered, and find the school that best fits their children's needs.
What does civic tech mean to you? Yeah. I really
So to me, civic tech is, it's a little buzzwordy, but it's, sometimes it's the technology that we use in order to help civil society run smoothly, including government technology, but also including, say, the technology technological side of, what other community organizations nonprofits do. But there's also a non tech component, sort of in the same way that sometimes you might talk about, civic hackers in a non technological way where they're working on improving a a system or an approach to a particular problem. To me, it kind of also includes the the ways that we gather information that eventually goes into these systems or that allows us to deliver services or, communicate between citizens, social service organizations, and government.
How are you doing? Pretty good. How's that? What would you say is your superpower,
and how do you make use of it in civic tech?
So, I'm kind of in that that stereotypical scene that's in any superhero movie where you you've got somebody that is just discovering they've got some power they didn't know about. I've had a couple of people come to me or not come to me. I go to them to say, oh, thank you so much for speaking. And I get this immediate, oh, well, thank you for being there. You were always paying so much attention. You I I really knew you were listening, and I look back to you to see if I was I was getting the room's attention. So apparently, I can I don't I don't wanna say that I always listen well, but I can convey, that I am trying to listen, that I am paying attention? And I try to use that, to hear what people are saying first, and hear what their needs are before just saying, oh, I've got this, really cool Angular app. Let's find a problem that we can solve with it, and instead to say, well, what are the problems you're facing? What is your experience? And how can I help or how can we help?
Nice. Those listening skills are are no doubt useful in this space. So since you mentioned it to me, I will ask, what is your favorite Civic Tech Chat episode?
So my favorite Civic Tech Chat episode is, I think it was actually the first episode that I listened to when I saw it meant mentioned in this week in Civic Tech was the human centered design episode, interviewing, I forgot her name, but, we were talking about it earlier, the woman who has built her own, human centered design consultancy.
Nice. Yeah. That's a a shout out to Amanda Damewood there, design guru. And our last question here, and perhaps the the most divisive and the hardest answer, which brigade in your opinion has the best sticker?
So I'm gonna not let myself say our own brigade and instead, say one of the other brigades that I really like their sticker for. Both because of the the design and how far away it came from, I really like the the code for Japan sticker. If you haven't seen it, it's the open curly brace with a instead of a matching brace, it has a j, an, sans serif j that kind of looks like a closed brace. It's very simple. It's very direct, and it's pretty recognizable.
Can you tell us your name, where you're from, and what you do? My name is Houseki
from Japan. I'm running Code for Japan.
Nice. And what is the why that drives your interest in civic tech? Okay. Oh, good question.
I I was, I I just I was just a computer engineer, many times and, many long times. And I've faced the I I experienced the big earthquake in Japan, 2000, '13 and, 02/02 sorry. 2011. And, I was, started the project to called the inside.info. It may it it is a cloud sourcing system, for collecting the, script information and where the help where we is needed or, what kind of, support will be, open, when, and and set and also, we, detect the the fake information, and and mapped the that information in at at the, digital map services. So using open source. So I started that kind of activities and realized that the local government, need to provide more data for for, explain what's happening in the for the earthquake and what thinking they are rebuilding that, that area damage their area. So I, start started conversation with, local government people, and I also, thought, more talent, tech talent needed for this field, kind this kind of, government field, public service field. So I, at that time, I saw the Jennifer Parker's TED talk, and I I thought maybe I could I can start this kind of, project in Japan. So I started Code for Japan.
Very cool. And, can you tell us a bit about our project that you're working on right now? Right now, Code of Japan
is, kind of, sorry. Right now, Code of Japan running, two kind of project. One is, helping brigades like Code of America does. So we, organize, we, organize a network for the local brigade. So and currently, Code of Japan has, nearly 88 80 brigades right now. And we we have a, kind of the we're running, for the local brigades and, and and also connect to the people, who want to solve the, issues, with technologies. So and second project is for the government. We are running a data academy. It's it it provides workshops for the, local government off shelves, how to, utilize their data for improving their, their work. So and and we, provide, workshops for the 18, local government, last year. Nice.
And, the term civic tech, what does that mean to you? Civic tech civic tech means,
for me, building trust with government people and, people who who want to, solve the problem, using the, skills, whatever their they can code or design or, or collect the data or something. It's, important to, important opportunity to involve the the many people who have not, interest in joining the, public services.
And, what would you say is your superpower? And how do you use it Mhmm. In civic tech?
If I have a superpower, I will change the, government decision making process, to use more open technologies.
And then, okay, last one. This is kind of a silly one. Mhmm. But also very serious.
So, so you've seen, like, their stickers Yeah. That got on the table and stuff. Which of the stickers that the brigades have is your favorite one?
Okay. I let me check that.
This one. This brigade? Oh, nice. Yeah. That is the, the chicken used for Austin, Texas's, ODD agency. Nice. Yeah. I met that person earlier. They're they're they're really nice. Yeah. Cool. That was a good choice. Yeah. So can you tell us your name, where you're from,
and what you do? My name is Mark Meyer. I am, I'm from Anchorage, Alaska. I work as a photographer in Anchorage, Alaska, which I've done for about twenty years. And I also work for the, I do work on code for Anchorage Brigade.
Yes. What is the why that drives your involvement with Civic Tech?
Oh, there's lots of whys. A lot of it is just, honestly personal making myself a better coder. And that was actually the first the first thing that got me into civic tech. And then after I discovered what a big world it is, it's, the civic aspects of it have have kind of made me keep going.
Can you tell us about a project that you're currently working on?
I've currently been working on the Anchorage CourtBot quite a lot, and it's been really pretty exciting because Anchorage has been working on that for a long time, and we finally got it to a place where the court system in Anchorage, has kinda given us the okay to start deploying it. And so we're starting to see some people actually using it.
And what does the term Civic Tech mean to you?
That's a great question. I think Civic Tech means, taking taking people as they come and using their talents, for for the good of everybody.
What would you say is your superpower, and how do you use it for civic tech?
Yeah. So I think my superpower is actually that I don't really have a superpower. And so, you know, coming into a group like Code for Anchorage or Code for Anything where there's a lot of people that are, really good at what they're doing, really coming in and not knowing anything has, I think, actually worked in my favor, and has let me approach problems a little bit differently and work on projects from a different direction.
And lastly, and perhaps most seriously, which brigade here has the best sticker?
So, I really like what I think is the code for Pittsburgh because it looks like it has, fourfold symmetry, and I don't know whether it's a caret, a v, or a less than, or a greater than sign.
Nice. Thank you so much.
What is your name, where you're from, and what you do? Chris Alfano. I'm from Code for Philly. I'm a software developer, a former brigade captain, current senior advisor, and an at large member of the National Advisory Council.
And what is the why that drives your involvement in civic tech?
What drives my involvement in civic tech is how I see see power consolidating around capital, and I wanna see some power rebalanced with, people that wanna improve their communities. And I think technology is the best lever we have to do that. And right now, technology workers and people in the creative economy, are fortunate to have, good incomes and pretty, stable jobs. And I think it's on us to, use that time we have to contribute our skills, these amazing skills skills we build, mostly in the private sector to kinda, like, pull them out of there and apply them on our own time to, our communities.
Can you tell us about a project that you're working on?
One project I'm working on right now is setting up a discourse forum for the National Brigade Network. I'm really excited about that because I think there's a lot of knowledge that's spread around this community, a lot of know how we're building, and a lot of cities and a lot of communities have a lot of the same challenges and needs. And I think to really tap our superpower as a as a network generation, we need to be using the network, acting like a network. And I think, this forum slash wiki could be a really big part of that. So someone who wants to, hop on that wiki, how do they go about that? Just go to discourse.code for america.org. We're gonna have links up to that on the brigade setup at the top corner, and you can sign up. We're gonna have it so you can sign in with Twitter or GitHub if you don't wanna make another account somewhere. And it's pretty easy to contribute. You can either create a new topic, reply to existing topics, or create a topic and turn it into a Wiki, page and edit that and make it something that folks in the community can, contribute to and build on top of what you start.
The term civic tech, what does it mean to you?
To me, civic tech is when, folks use technology or help technology, be applied for the public interest in their communities. I like Mark Head's, analogy of, grab your toga and this notion of citizenship that you have to engage in your community and contribute to community. I avoid the word citizenship because that has some other connotations for a lot of folks. But the sense of contributing to community, I think, is important, and I wish we had a a word for that that wasn't tied to documentation.
What would you say is your superpower, and how do you use it in your involvement with Civic Tech?
I think we all have a superpower of collaborating across the whole country, and the world even. And, we need to use that by sharing what we do so that those that work on the same thing address can build on top of what we started and and avoid, us all just doing the same things over and over again. We need to accumulate and get more powerful over time, and we're gonna do that by sharing, by taking the time after we do something to write about it, to talk about it, to help others build on top of it.
Alright. And perhaps most critically of all the things we've talked about so far, which brigade in your opinion has the best sticker?
Obviously, Code for Philly, but I'm a little biased. If you take that out of the equation, I really like Open Oakland's, Emergent o made out of all these little blobs. Open Savannah has a similar thing, but it's not their official sticker or logo. So it's gotta go to Open Oakland.
Can you tell us your name, where you're from, and what you do?
My name is Dominique Dougal. I am from Code for Philly, and I'm an a senior advisor at Code for Philly. I'm also the Northeast Regional Representative for the National Advisory Council for Code for America.
What is the why that drives your involvement in civic tech?
Wow. See, that's a great question. Why? That's such a great question. There's a bunch of stuff. I guess, there's a bunch of stuff that I could talk about that answers that. But I think at a very fundamental level, like, people should just be able to be involved in governance. Like, that's just pretty basically it impacts their lives every single day. And as a society, we have to better participate and collaborate in these specific structures that, touch every single one of us. And I think it's also the vehicle that enables us and empowers us to take care of other people. So it's really important that we are incredibly thoughtful about those structures and how we participate in those structures. And I think the brigade is a really unique and new way to engage in old old systems, and hopefully help improve those systems. And we have a lot of responsibility for how we go about that improvement.
Can you tell us about a project that you're currently working on?
So, I think I have a slightly roundabout answer for projects when it comes to things like Code for Philly. So I think that when we, think about projects in a narrow view as software. That is definitely one type of way to participate in the brigade, and it's one output for what we do. But so much of what we do really starts with relationship building. So I'm actually in the process of handing over leadership to a new set of volunteers who are going to be our captains. And so right now, I'm investing a lot of time in helping them establish what, their leadership will look like, how do we really create sustainability in the brigade, and how do we, how do we as an organization and a group really, create sustainability for ourselves in terms of things like funding even, and what makes sense within the scope of the brigade. So we are having some really interesting conversations where right now, I'm helping to support, the project management function of a project called Philly Ward Leaders. This was an application that was built about three three years ago now, actually, and was adopted by a nonprofit partner. They didn't really know how to maintain it and were curious if they should be going back to Code for Philly for volunteers or if they should be paying for services to maintain it. And so we said, yeah. Code for Philly maintain it. And, in terms of, like, helping them set up some of the maintenance and new feature work, and then what maintenance looks like from Code for Philly's perspective is helping them recruit technical volunteers and helping them manage technical volunteers. So those are a couple of the things that I'm working on right now with Code for Philly.
And the term civic tech, what does it mean to you?
To me, civic technology is about using technology and data and design and all kinds of things that fit into the technology world as a mode of civic engagement, civic participation.
What would you say is your superpower, and how do you use it in your involvement with civic tech?
What? That is such a hard question. So when we got asked this question for our workshop, I had no idea how to answer this question. Oh, that is a really good question. Okay. So here's what I'm gonna say off the cuff, and if you ask me this tomorrow, I'll probably have a totally different answer. But I think that my ability to be direct and forthright with people is not something that a lot of people have. And, I'm not always perfect at it, but I definitely think that is something that, has been really important for holding our leadership team accountable, holding myself accountable, holding our volunteers accountable, but also people who we work with. You know, who are the people who we really want to say you need to do better? So I'm I'm speaking really more in terms of our government partners, and we don't approach it as, like, you need to do better. But, you know, we know that you also want to do better, so how can we help support you in that? So I think just having really direct and honest conversations helps us get away from all the niceties that oftentimes blur what, what really needs to get done. And so then it takes us to action, and I think everyone's a lot happier when we're able just to have that, sort of getting things done mentality and attitude.
Alright. Now this might be the hardest question of the bunch. Which brigade
has the best sticker? This is the hardest question of the bunch, and I had to do a full survey of the stickers. And I learned that it's code for Albuquerque because they have a hot air balloon inside of a code bracket, and I love that. I think it's so cool. So that's my favorite is code for Albuquerque.
Nice choice. I I like that one also. Yeah. It's a good one. Can you tell us your name, where you're from, and what you do?
Sure. So my name is Nina Kin. I'm from Los Angeles, and I'm a systems analyst at the County of Los Angeles auditor controller.
What is the why that drives your involvement in civic tech?
The why. So why I'm involved in civic tech is because I've been involved in government technology for the past eleven years. And I've seen us do really cool things, but I've also seen, a lot of inefficiencies or, you know, things that we have a hard time fixing. And I'm interested in, learning how to, improve the way that we do things and, you know, educate the community, educate people within government, have more of a back and forth, in that.
Can you tell us about a project that you're working on?
One of the projects I'm on that I'm really excited about is actually for work. And what we're doing is we're building a centralized repository for all of the contract information that we have here in LA County. Because currently, you know, every department does their own contracting, and so all of that information is very siloed. And it's very difficult to get, an overall picture of the state of contracting, across all of the departments. So what we're trying to do is to create, you know, a really simple sort of database that will work, across all the lines of business that our various departments, are involved in so that we can track and, you know, report on data, like, even something as basic as how many active contracts do we have in the county, you know, and how many of them are with, vendors who are local small businesses. Yeah.
What does civic tech mean to you?
I think of it as a tech that, you know, impacts all of us and our neighborhoods and our communities. That's not, defined by whether or not you can pay for services or anything like that. I know that's that's kind of broad, but
What would you say is your superpower, and how do you use it for civic tech?
My superpower what is my superpower? That's that's something I've been working on for a while, and I'm still figuring out a bit that but I think at this point, I would say talking to people, surprisingly for me, because I used to be very anxious in talking to people. But I think that, you know, that's one thing one skill or superpower that I've been working on and developed. And what we really need is a lot of, community building and connecting of people. So that's what I try to do.
And the last question, perhaps the most important, which brigade, in your opinion, has the best sticker?
Well, no no question there. I think Hack four LA has the best sticker.
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