Organizations

National Association of Government Webmasters National Conference, St. Louis, MO, Sept. 22-24

The National Association of Government Webmasters will hold its 2010 National Conference at the Millennium Hotel in St. Louis, MO, Sept. 22-24. The event will focus on “the professional development of webmasters, programmers, designers, developers, managers, CIOs and other government technology professionals from the local, state and federal government, and Web development world in general.”

TransparencyData.com shines light on campaign contributions from last 20 years

Sunlight Foundation has launched TransparencyData, a new Website that lets users easily access the past 20 years of federal and state campaign contributions all in one place. The site merges data from OpenSecrets, FollowTheMoney.org and lobbying information from the Senate Office of Public Records.

‘Design for America’ contest aims to make government data more accessible

Sunlight Labs is holding a civic design contest, Design for America, in an effort to “make government data more accessible and comprehensible to the American public.” Categories are Data Visualization, Process Transparency and Redesigning the Government.

Today’s Ada Lovelace

I wanted to promote the amazing work of Jennifer Pahlka and Code for America. I first met Jennifer at the Gov 2.0 Summit last year after following her for a while on Twitter and reading her blog PahlkaDot. Jennifer has always impressed me with her passion for making the world a better place and her brilliant mind. I can’t think of anyone better for drawing attention to the achievements of women in technology and science.

New on GovFresh: ‘Fresh from: Sunlight’

Fresh from: Sunlight is a new GovFresh feature that highlights the latest transparency and open government news directly from Sunlight Foundation and Sunlight Labs. Contributors will include Sunlight’s best and brightest, including transparency hunk Jake Brewer.

Introducing the Cycle of Transparency

Government transparency is that rarest of political phenomena — a great idea with support across the political spectrum and popularity among the public. Yet, here we are in the 21st century with every tool we would need to make government more transparent and accountable, and still we are operating with a government that often behaves as it did in the 19th century.

So, transparent government is a good thing, but we do not yet have one. Now what?

Video: ‘How open source can make us a stronger society’

Ingres Vice President of Product Management Deb Woods discusses Open Source for America and government policy issues around open source. Ingres is an OSFA founding member and Woods serves on its Steering Committee. She also runs the open source blog and podcast Out of the Woods.

Introducing Sunlight Live

As the Open Government Directive was announced in a live webcast back in December, Sunlight tried something a little different by covering the event live in a variety of formats at once.

As is a norm around here, we basically just got a lot of people in a room, tried a bunch of stuff and paid attention to what seemed to work. At the end of the announcement we simultaneously had a tweet stream from across the open government community going, a live blog, and a Google Wave. We threw the obligatory word cloud at it, sent email blasts, and followed up with blog posts about the Directive’s many components.

It was fun and seemed to be pretty effective. And it also got us thinking …

An emblem for open government

As we’ve written about quite a lot so far in 2010, we are launching a national campaign to make government more open, transparent, and ultimately: accountable.

Today, we’re excited to put out one of the most important parts of building this campaign: the “mark” that will be emblematic of what we as an open government community stand for.

Gov 2.0 guide to Crisis Commons and CrisisCamp

CrisisCamps are efforts by local communities to garner the collective skills of volunteers, particularly technology related, to support relief efforts during crises, such as natural disasters. Crisis Commons is the supporting organization whose mission is “empowering global citizens to save lives through technology.” Most recently, CrisisCamps have been active in supporting relief efforts following the earthquake in Haiti. Here’s an overview of CrisisCamp, CrisisCommons and how you can connect and get involved.

Sunlight whips up Real Time Congress iPhone app

Sunlight Foundation released a free Real Time Congress iPhone app now available at iTunes. Real Time Congress includes live floor updates, key document information, Whip notices and hearing schedules. More on the release here. See also Sunlight’s Android app, ‘Congress.’

Gov 2.0 guide to Sunlight Foundation

Sunlight Foundation is a Washington, DC-based 501c(3) non-profit organization founded in 2006 to focus on “making government transparent and accountable.” Its name comes from a quote by Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis: “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.”

Sunlight was co-founded by Michael Klein and Ellen Miller. Miller serves as its executive director.

Salute the Sun(light) Foundation

It Was A Very Good Year for Sunlight Foundation in 2009, and they kicked 2010 off with a drive to recruit transparency leaders at the local level. You can join here.

Watch Sunlight’s 2009 retrospective and goals for 2010 video and stay tuned for more.

5 U.S. mayors, 25 developers will make the Gov 2.0 American Dream Team

Tryouts for the Gov 2.0 American Dream Team are on. Alphagovs, alphageeks get ready to spec and code, because Code for America is recruiting 5 cities to take the lead in re-shaping the face of the American municipal IT department.

Prospective mayors and developers, imagine yourself announcing the launch of democracy’s defining technological turning point.

Imagine you could take advantage of the work of 5 city ventures and their innovative approach to technology and bring your city the esteem and engagement companies like Twitter and Facebook enjoy.

Gov 2.0 Hero: Jen Pahlka

Jen Pahlka on her new role as founder of Code for America, the new role developers play in democracy and the importance of their involvement.

Gov 2.0 guide to Open Source for America

Open Source for America is an organization formed in July 2009 by businesses and organizations to advocate for open source technology use within the federal government.

Open Source for America launches new video campaign

Open Source for America launched a new video campaign to promote the benefits of government using open source technology. The video includes business leaders from Red Hat, Sun Microsystems and Google.

Code for America’s Pahlka on ‘The Citizen Internet’

Code for America founder and director Jen Pahlka discusses Citizen 2.0 (related: Four Steps to the (Gov 2.0) Epiphany: Better Government Through Citizen Development.

Quotable:

The line between citizen and consumer is shifting … it’s gotten a lot blurrier.

Entrepreneur, blogger Anil Dash announces venture to connect tech, government experts

Tech entrepreneur and blogger Anil Dash announced the launch of Expert Labs at Web 2.0 Expo NY 09.

Expert Labs will work with policy makers, technologists, scientists, researchers and academics to leverage crowdsourcing as a way to “help government listen” and create better policy.

“Dot gov is the new dot com,” said Dash, who was Vice President and Chief Evangelist at Six Apart, makers TypePad and Movable Type and will serve as Director of Expert Labs.

Expert Labs will run as part of the American Association for the Advancement of Science with a $500,000 grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Dash told attendees, “I hope you pay attention to the idea that Web 2.0 can serve the greater good than some of the trivial things we’ve done. We can actually help make our country better.”

Great American Hackathon set for Dec. 12-13

Sunlight Labs has joined with Mozilla, Google, Redhat, Fedora, Open Source for America and Code for America to promote the Great American Hackathon. The two-day event, December 12-13, aims to “to solve as many open government problems as we can with as many hackathons across the country as possible.”

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