Management

What to Expect from Code for America in 2014

Ten governments are ready for a serious investment in innovation.

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Jimmy is a writer and editor who publishes a weekly newsletter. You can find him on Twitter.

Code for America’s impact on local government has been nothing short of revolutionary. Also know as the “Peace Corps for geeks,” Code for America places fellows in 10 cities each year, where they work on open-source projects, civic hacking, citizen collaboration and much more. Founder Jennifer Pahlka is walking the talk; she is currently serving a one-year fellowship with the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy.

As the organization begins another year of innovation, content manager Lauren Dyson pulled together a few predictions for 2014 from a few influential government leaders:

Mark Leech, Application Development Manager, City of Albuquerque: “Regionalization will allow smaller communities to participate and act as a force multiplier for them.”

Rebecca Williams, Policy Analyst, Sunlight Foundation: “Open data policy (law and implementation) will become more connected to traditional forms of governance, like public records and town hall meetings.”

Rick Dietz, IT Director, City of Bloomington, Ind.: “I think governments will need to collaborate directly more on open source development, particularly on enterprise scale software systems — not just civic apps.”

Kristina Ng, Office of Financial Empowerment, City and County of San Francisco: “I’m excited about the growing community of innovative government workers.”

Hillary Hartley, Presidential Innovation Fellow: “We’ll need to address sustainability and revenue opportunities. Consulting work can only go so far; we must figure out how to empower civic tech companies to actually make money.”

Here is a list of the 2014 cities, along with the official team blog, that will keep the community updated on their progress.