code for los angeles: intro

Code for LA: Santa Monica

What is a Code for America Brigade?

We link the tech community with local government to solve problems in our community.

• Meetups in > 50 cities • 3000+ members • 200+ locations • 27 captains • 41 brigades

!Our Network

Key Leadership RolesCaptains

o Vetted volunteers in a structured program who are deeply committed to Code for America's mission in their city

o Captains must be endorsed by a Municipal Partner !Municipal Partners

o Volunteers from local government who agree to endorse and collaborate with a local brigade

!Community Organizers

o Volunteers with demonstrated ability & capacity for organizing in support of Brigade activities

Key Membership RolesCoders & Repo Managers

o Volunteers who get (or want to learn about) hackathons, agile development, GitHub and open source, civic tech

!Graphics & UX Designers

o Volunteers who understand (or want to learn about) what we mean when we say "let's make the interfaces to government more beautiful and easier to use"

!Subject Matter Experts

o Volunteers who share knowledge with civic technologists about in the inner workings of municipal government operations

What types of activities can I help with?

ORGANIZE!

OPEN CIVIC DATA!

SHARE CIVIC TECH!

HELP GOVERNMENT GET OPEN!

CODE!

How we will organize Code for LA?

Monthly meetup with a focus city

Later we may do a westside and eastside each month, or even individual cities

Give developers a chance to meet with city officials to propose open data sets, or brainstorm ideas.

Hack night

Regular hack nights to give teams a place for continual progress on their projects

Heavy focus on learning with mentors available for help

Goals

Make real apps that citizens really use

Provide an anchor of communication between civic and tech

Build a community that promotes openness, collaboration, and learning

Help local governments on open data and open gov initiatives

MetricsHow will we know if a brigade is effective?

Endorsed by local government partner and CfA

Meets on a regular basis, at least monthly

Maintains a clear plan of action, at least annually

Curates linked, open data for the common good

Implements open source, civic tech locally

What do I do?Talk to people!

Discuss project ideas.

Find a project that sounds interesting.

Gather some interested people.

Find a time to discuss further.

Let Jeff or Yohei know so we can put it on http://codeforla.us