Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced that the Spending and Government Efficiency (SAGE) Commission has released its final report on modernizing and rightsizing New York State government. The final report identified initiatives that represent the most comprehensive reorganization of State government since those undertaken by Governor Al Smith in the 1920s. Collectively, they are expected to save over $1.6 billion once fully implemented, improve service to citizens and businesses, and increase transparency and accountability.
Tag: gov20
Code Across America!
Connect with citizens throughout the country who are passionate about technology and their communities. Together with our friends, colleagues and neighbors, we’ll Code Across America in service to the places where we live. Code Across America is a multi-day event that any municipality or community can join, big or small, beginner or expert. Individuals and groups can Code Across America through virtual and in-person activities around the country. February 23rd is International Open Data Day.
We Built This City: The State of Civic Technology, with Code For America and IDEO
Since at least some New Yorkers have adopted the name, we think using it will help the public find information that will help them be prepared and safe during the storm – and that’s our goal in communicating during severe weather,” Julie Wood, the mayor’s deputy press secretary and voice behind @NYCMayorsOffice, said in an email. “We know that a lot of New Yorkers get their information via Twitter and that’s why we put information there and on other social media platforms with great frequency during severe weather. We want that information to be searchable and easy to find.
A call for technology driven Community Boards in NYC
Jessica Lappin, currently a City Council member and Manhattan Boro President candidate, just released a paper on the future / reform of community boards. In this document, there is some juicy TECH DRIVEN POLICY tidbits.
Some take aways…
1. Taking boards into the 21st Century– Community Stat– Live streaming– Online surveys and crowd-sourcing maps2. Greater diversity on boards– adding small business owners and engineers.4. Online training of responsibilities5. Digital tools for planning and development6. Onlineing the business application process
These are great TECHNOLOGY driven policies to bring our land use councils / aka Community Boards into the 21st Century. I will be adding this to the Open NY 2013 Goals and workshop reading list.
* This posting doesn’t not constitute an endorsement of this candidate.
With the new app, those who want to submit a tip can also send in a picture. That’s nothing new. Police have received scores of pictures among the 2,100 text tips it has received to 274637 (crimes). The quality of the tips and pictures vary, depending on the smartphone used to take them, but the NYPD says it solved a rape thanks to a text message.
Noel Hidalgo: Why I’m Coding for America and New York
We are living on the horizon of a bright tomorrow. Transparency, efficiency, and participation are echoing through the halls of government and in the streets of New York. In 2009, when a small group of organizers and technologists walked through the doors of the State House, we etched these words into the walls. Four years later, transparency, efficiency, and participation have been etched across the world as the mantra of public / private collaboration.
In my childhood, service and adventure filled my dreams. Both sides of my Grandparents dedicated their lives to their families and community. My maternal grandparents were educators. My paternal grandfather was a warrior & my paternal grandmother was a caretaker. I grew up the son of two US Air Force officers. They intermingled their stories with optimism and adventure. Their inspiration and support gave me the fertile grounds to achieve the rank of Eagle Scout and dedicate my High School career to community service.
After several years attempting to make a buck in the roaring 1990s, I found myself under 25, and unemployed for the second time. In 2003, I saw our nation slip into two wars and further into a an unsustainable economy. It was then that I said enough was enough, and I volunteered for John Kerry’s Presidential campaign. On 1 Aug 2004, I moved to NYC and vowed to make a better city. In my NYC first year, I discovered a budding vine of code named Drupal. This vine, was fresh, global, idealistic, and fertilized with civic roots. It wrapped every one of my digital ideals into one easily deployed software package.
Through the communities that supported drupal, I discovered a peer network rooted in openness, freedom, civics, & do it ourselves. This led me to start NYC’s Drupal User Group, organize a series of unconferences, pull together NYC’s first Coworking location, circumnavigate the world while exploring the other end of the internet, drive a NYC Taxi Cab, help organize Twitter VoteReport (a precursor to Foursquare with election protection tools), organize NYC’s open government community, reinvent public information portals at NYSenate.gov, and help pass the most progressive open data legislation any U.S. city has ever seen, aka NYC Local Law 11 of 2012.
Now, I join Code for America as the NYC Program Manager. Headquartered at Blue Ridge Foundations’ Cobble Hill, Brooklyn office, I get to be with some of NYC’s brightest civic innovators – DataKind, TurboVote, WomensLaw.org, ControlShift, and iMentor.
What does this mean for New York?
In 2013, we will root our civic technology community in sustainable soil. For in 2014, a new municipal administration will take over the Mayor’s Office, the Council’s Speaker’s chair, the Public Advocate’s gavel, and the Comptroller’s calculator. For our city to bridge into the next administration, we must have strong roots.
Luckily, New York City’s civic technology & open government community does not grow alone. Thanks to a lattice of experienced brothers and sisters, New York State and City is blessed with a suite of forward thinking transparency and open government laws, statutes, policies, and programs.
Our next 12 months are an unprecedented opportunity to innovate. Over the next 12 months, we must actively engage NYC’s administration, and maximize our opportunity with one of the most creative municipal governments this Nation has ever seen.
Together, we will explore the City’s data sets and generate new insights.
Together, we will build efficient ways for us to report our issues to the City.
Together, we will engage in mutual aid and never forget that through unity we are the strongest.
If you are ready to stand with the hundreds of fellow New Yorkers who have already committed to coding for New York, I ask you to make a resolution and join us…
1. Join Open NY Forum, this forum will be used for CfA Brigade related announcements.
2. Schedule a meeting with me and discuss your civic technology issues, problems, or opportunities via oHours.
3. Or contact me at Noel@CodeForAmerica.org or @noneck on twitter.
Mayor Bloomberg has brought more openness to all areas of city government than anyone else,” Benjamin Branham, a spokesman for the corporation, said. “E.D.C. is pleased to work with the comptroller to provide additional transparency to its operations so that New Yorkers can better understand the resources being committed to increase economic development and job creation throughout the five boroughs.
Mike Flower’s work isn’t sexy, but it is the best example of #Gov20 at work. Another great video of his is from DataGotham 2012. Clogged drains + Waste Pickup + BioFuels = win, win, win!
These two videos are a must for anyone who is trying to understand data science within Government.
Mike Flowers, Director of the City’s Policy and Strategic Planning Analytics Team, explains how the city has been using building data to crack down on illegal apartment conversions, which helps prevent fires. As a result of this effort, building inspectors saw a five-fold increase in the uncovering and remediation of illegal conversions.
(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)
…the [USPS] has a unique asset that could allow it to make money by collecting valuable data that would contribute to the country’s safety and economic health: its far-reaching network of trucks. The service’s thousands of delivery vehicles have only one purpose now: to transport mail. But what if they were fitted with sensors to collect and transmit information about weather or air pollutants? The trucks would go from being bulky tools of industrial-age communication to being on the cutting edge of 21st-century information-gathering and forecasting.