global civic hacking

“to fix government, call in the geeks”

civic hacking?

“Government is simply what we do together”Jennifer Pahlka, founder, Code for America

“Not about ‘banging out code’ or ‘diving into data’ but a mentality of engaged civic action”

“A civic responsibility: not, what can your city do for you, but what can you do for your city?”

“Gov 2.0”

• ‘Government of the People, by the People, and for the People’ – the founding principle of democratic government

• Leveraging emerging tools, technologies, and collaboration principles to improve government efficiency and effectiveness.

why civic hacking?

• “Revenues are down, costs are up—if we don’t change how cities work, they’re going to fail.”

• Less money• More people• More complicated services• What to do?

civic hacking milestones

• 2009: – Transparency Camp– Code for America

• 2010: – City Camp– Civic Commons

• 2012:– Commons for Europe– CityCamp Tunisia– Code for Kenya– Code for the World?

Code for America

• 26 Fellows• 4 Cities• 11 months• Code in public repositories• Objectives:

– Build network of cities, citizens, community groups, and startups around

– Make government more open and efficient through technology– Develop civic leaders capable of transformational change

www.codeforamerica.org

City Camp

• Structured ‘Unconference’ model for cities• Government officials, civil servants, hackers, designers,

citizens, journalists• Objectives:– Use the web and tech tools to facilitate local government

transparency, good governance– Develop communities of users and advocates for Open Gov

principles at the local level– Deliver tangible outcomes

http://citycamp.govfresh.com/

Civic Commons

• A marketplace for civic technologies• 614 applications• 237 cities• Citizen reporting (SeeClickFix) to contact tracking (CiviCRM)• Objectives:

– Network civic innovators and IT decision-makers in cities– Community-edited resource of working civic applications– Central source for best practice tips and case studies

www.civiccommons.org

Commons for Europe• 7 Cities• 2-3 Fellows per city• 1 year• Part-time fellowships based in home city/country • Emphasis on networking, knowledge sharing, collaborative and

distributed development• Objectives:

– Reduce administrative cost and facilitate citizen engagement– Support transparency and collaboration– Build reusable web/mobile tools

http://commonsforeurope.net/

• 4 fellows• 6 months• Government, Media, Civil Society co-sponsorship• Host organizations compete to host fellow through project

commitment pitches• Objectives:– Enhancing service delivery through better governance,

citizen oversight– Supporting growth & jobs via the fast-growing ICT sector– Encouraging data-driven development policy and decision

making

Code4Kenya

Code for the World?

• A global network of civic innovators and hackers• A series of events, trainings, and knowledge

exchanges among global cities• An open source ‘Urban Civic Stack’ of critical

urban governance tools and city data standards• A common code repository• A replicable model for any city, anywhere