Code for America

...could easily translate into Code for Canada.
Simply because of need.

"Revenues are down, costs are up -- if we don't change how cities work, they're going to fail."

Andrew Greenhill, City of Tucson mayor's office

Started in 2009 by Jennifer Pahlka, Code for America is described by Wikipedia as:  “...Code for America helps city governments become more transparent, connected and efficient by connecting the talents of cutting-edge web developers with people who deliver city services and want to embrace the transformative power of the web to achieve more impact with less money. Inspired in part by Teach for America, CfA works with city officials and leading web development talent to identify and then develop web solutions that can then be shared and rolled out more broadly to cities across America.” 

Jennifer states its programmers--"nerds"--bridge the gap between governments and the taxpaying public so that resources (tax revenue) can be spent wisely, and transparently, often saving considerable time and money because project timelines are substantially reduced.  Code for America provides local governments with tools to monitor project effectiveness and evaluate the allocation of resources...in other words, is your local government doing what the public wants -- efficiently and effectively.

An offshoot that showed tangible results was Ben Berkowitz' ClickFix in 2008:  What if reporting graffiti or a broken traffic light or a clogged storm drain was as easy as snapping a photo with your mobile phone? What if that report was sent directly to all the groups that might give a damn, including city hall, the police department, the local utility company, and the neighborhood watch?  Even better, what if all your neighbors could see those nearby reports and lend their own voices to apply pressure and get problems fixed?

But does it work?  Not only was Ben's initial graffiti problem solved, to date 2,700 other user-submitted community problems have been dealt with as well on the "open 311" program that can be used for anything from reporting potholes to the public works department to reporting unauthorized activity around a commercial activity to police at night.

It can indeed be called Government 2.0.

Authors Tapscott and Williams co-wrote a book "Macrowikinomics" which opens government up to the public in a way government would never have considered.

Especially by bureaucrats who frankly don't seek that high level of public "interaction". 

Mayors need to know it's not bureaucrats who decide that.

Mayors need to know the system is not only effective but that communities will save money.

So what if bureaucrats begin to feel they're not nearly as important as they--or the Mayor and Council--thought.

Mr. Tapscott cited a recent conversation with the chief executive of Melbourne. He suggested to her that one way to apply his open-government approach would be to make public all of the city’s information on bicycle accidents and where they happen.

“I said to her, ‘If you release all that data, within 24 hours someone will do a mash-up and you will be saving lives within weeks, and it won’t cost you a penny,”’ Mr. Tapscott said.

Jennier Pahlka concludes:  "it is also about the government being useful to you in your daily life and engaging you in your daily life."  

All that bureaucracy everyone chides has had a wonderful byproduct — it's collected a lot of data over the years.

While civic technology might not be the sexiest sector, it's an area that's ripe for innovation. All that bureaucracy everyone chides has had a wonderful byproduct — it's collected a lot of data over the years. Were that data to be digitized and made actionable through APIs and innovative apps, our cities could reach a new level of efficiency, saving millions or billions of taxpayer dollars in the process — a welcome break in the face of budget cuts.  The Open311 system description is here.

The bottom line is that taxpayers have the ideas--albeit often too many ideas/solutions with little access to all the facts to which council and bureaucracy are privy--which Code for America...Canada...could innovate.

"There is something very big starting to happen at the intersection of the consumerization of the enterprise and government."

Abhi Nemani, CfA's director of strategy and communications. 

Plus...as Pahlka says:  government can (then) speak "nerd" and nerds can (then) speak "gov".

"I see the demise of traditional consulting work," offers Kia.

No loss there, Kia.

Many of Urban Systems' (of Kelowna) consulting projects for the District of Coldstream didn't produce what taxpayers wanted anyway.  Why?  Because bureaucrats decided for taxpayers what the project parameters would be.

See what Toronto has done with their Open 311 system that includes mobile apps:  here