Two important San Francisco open government announcements from OpenSF founders and contributors Jay Nath and Adriel Hampton.
Just received the latest Code for America newsletter and wanted to share info about its ‘Lab Day’ program that happens every Friday in its San Francisco offices.
Last week’s election brought a new party to power in our nation’s capitol and shook up the political landscape in San Francisco. With Mayor Gavin Newsom’s ascension to Lt. Governor of California there is a job opening in City Hall. His election has officially kicked off a process to name an interim mayor and who it’s going to be has been the buzz of the City for well over a year.
I had the opportunity to sit down with San Francisco Chief Information Officer Chris Vein during sf.govfresh and ask him about his work around open government, open data and government innovation. What resonates most with me is how he touches on the importance of a partnership between mayor and CIO and SF Mayor Gavin Newsom’s willingness to let him ‘fail forward.’
If you live in the U.S. and have turned on your TV or surfed the web in the past 24 hours, chances are you have seen one, or more likely hundreds, of political ads. You cannot shake the wall-to-wall political coverage about the significance of next week’s election.
Public servants, developers and entrepreneurs gathered together to discuss and learn about the civic value of open data and how the City of San Francisco and private citizens are leveraging this opportunity at sf.govfresh, Sept. 1, at Adobe Systems’ San Francisco offices. Speakers included San Francisco Chief Information Officer Chris Vein, Mom Maps Founder & CEO Jill Seman, San Francisco Department of Technology Director of Innovation Jay Nath, Stamen Partner Michal Migurski, Routesy Founder Steven Peterson and SF Environment Internet Communications Coordinator Lawrence Grodeska.
I’m very excited about GovFresh’s first event next week, sf.govfresh, September 1, 2010, 6:00-9:00 p.m. Admission is free and will held in a beautiful space at Adobe‘s San Francisco offices (special thanks to Adobe for hosting and sponsoring this event).
The goal of sf.govfresh is to bring together public servants, citizens, civic developers and social entrepreneurs to network and learn more about San Francisco’s innovation, technology and open government initiatives. Together we can learn how government is changing the way it works and how we as citizens can change the way we work with government.
The City of San Francisco has launched PolicySF, a Website to ‘help communities share good ideas with one another.’ The site provides ‘policy toolkits’ with FAQs, processes, sample policy documents and ordinances on SF-specific initiatives. Other governments can also share their ideas.
Here’s video from yesterday’s Open311 press conference in San Francisco, including Vivek Kundra, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, SF CIO Chris Vein and O’Reilly Media’s Tim O’Reilly.
San Francisco has selected Brightidea to power its new idea platform aimed to foster ideas from the city’s 26,000 employees. The site is located at ImproveSF.org.
The top idea will be selected for implementation with 10 other high ranking ideas recognized in an event with Mayor Gavin Newsom and get featured on SFGov.org as well as the city’s Facebook page.
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom addressed the city’s new open source evaluation policy and views on open source during his weekly YouTube address (forward to 10:12).
The City and County of San Francisco’s Committee on Information Technology released its new software evaluation policy. Here’s the full text or you can access at the COIT Website.
Gov 2.0 LA, an ‘un-conference’ on social media and government, will be held Feb. 5-7. Registration is free to all attendees.
Sponsors include Microsoft, You2Gov, Rock Creek Strategic Marketing, Internet E-Business, O’Reilly Media, SeeClickFix and BLANKSPACES.
Last year, San Francisco opened up its data stream to the general public, encouraging developers to integrate the data into applications, sites, and bits of information the public could use. Since then, there’s been more than a dozen applications to utilize the data and turn it in to apps that make residents’ lives easier in a number of ways ~ from finding the best public transit options, to figuring out how to dispose of that old camera. You’ll find all this info and much more within these apps.
San Francisco is one of a few major U.S. cities leading the way in the open government, Gov 2.0 movement. SF has opened up data, issued an agency-wide open government directive and continues to pursue innovative opportunities around this effort. (See all SF news at sf.govfresh.com)
Here’s an overview.
San Francisco residents can take full advantage of the city’s open data via Web and mobile applications featured at DataSF App Showcase. Apps offer crime updates, recycling locations, restaurant health inspection scores, BART/MUNI schedules and more. Developers can also submit apps for submission.
According to the site, DataSF App Showcase “celebrates the innovators and innovations who are championing the Mayor’s vision of a more collaborative and open government.”
EcoFinder is a free iPhone app that helps San Francisco residents and businesses find recycle locations throughout the city, including electronics, appliance and matresses. Users can filter drop-off/pick-up options by free or pay services.
EcoFinder was created using open data from SF Environment as part of San Francisco’s open data initiative and developed by Haku Wale in partnership with SF Environment, Nextive and AdMob.
InformationWeek features San Francisco’s open data initiative and DataSF.org. Executive editor Fritz Nelson interviews SF mayor Gavin Newsom, SF CTO Blair Adams, SF Director of Innovation Jay Nath and developers building applications from this newly-open data.
San Francisco public officials, including Mayor Gavin Newsom, discuss the launch of launch of DataSF.org and the city’s open government initiative at a meeting with city department heads. Highlights include Newsom’s overview of why the effort is important and Tim O’Reilly’s talk on government as a platform.
An open source union movement
Earlier this year, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom ignited an open source movement in government when the city approved the nation’s first open source software policy. Now, another movement — labor may be getting behind this effort. I have been asked to speak with Local 21 of Professional & Technical Engineers (IFPTE/AFL-CIO) today about Gov 2.0 initiatives I helped lead for Newsom and why unions should embrace open source technology.