Preview – How to Fix Government

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code for america logo

Code for America Labs (CFA), Inc., is a non-partisan, non-political 501(c)(3) organization, engaged in “helping American cities use web technology to do a better job of providing services to citizens” (CFA web site).   It does this by working with city officials to develop web-based applications that will better connect citizens with their local governments – reducing administrative costs and improving service delivery to the public.  Best of all, the resulting applications are shareable, that is:  what has been developed for use by one city can be used by any other city.

It is this innovative approach of enabling city governments to better serve their citizens through the development of web applications that drives CFA.  Local government:  More open, more efficient, more responsive. 

Jen Pahlka
Jennifer Pahlka

Jennifer Pahlka (CFA’s founder and this year’s presenter at SXSWi), has spent the past 15 years in the company of the technology elite, and has worked in the non-profit sector, in the world of business-to-business technology media, and in game development.  Her vita includes running the Game Developers Conference and the Independent Games Festival, serving as Executive Director of the International Game Developers Association, running the Web 2.0 and Gov 2.0 events for TechWeb, and co-chairing the successful Web 2.0 Expo.

This year’s CFA SXSWi panel will provide an overview of who is working on the problems of government openness, efficiency, and responsiveness, how these problems are being addressed, and how the SXSWi tech community can help.  Jennifer explains, “The reason why we’re presenting at SXSW is because we think that audience needs to sign up to get involved in this movement to make government more efficient and open.  We’re trying to bring the talent of the tech industry into public service and build an army of geeks ready to work to make government look more like the internet — responsive, agile, and collaborative.”

In addition to CFA’s recognized successes in Boston, Philadelphia, Seattle, and Washington, D.C., Jennifer says CFA’s “work has been inspired and shaped by others working on the open government movement in places like Manor, TX, San Francisco, New York City, and Portland. The successes in those places, as well as at different levels of government, are what encourage our belief that Internet Citizens can fix government.”

CFA actively recruits tech talent to participate in a specific-term 11-month fellowship building internet applications that will make local governments more open, more efficient, and more responsive to citizen needs, and will mentor, train (in San Fransisco!), and match development teams to their cities/projects for the best results.  The list of 2011 Code for America fellows is impressive.  Volunteer corps positions are also available.

If you are interested in application design/coding and want to make your government better, the contacts at (and through) CFA will be of utmost importance to you.  Or you might even be interested in one of their 2012 fellowships.  For details on how to become a CFA fellow, check out their web site at:  http://codeforamerica.org/fellows/

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