Tag Archives: Code for America

Writing a book about Raleigh being an open source city

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It’s about time to come out of hibernation mode and come out swinging for 2013. I’ve been quiet the last two weeks. Red Hat had their annual holiday shut down from December 24 to January 1 and I decided to extend that until January 3. I head back to the office this Friday.

Over the last two weeks, I spent some time with the family, did a lot of running (I made my goal of running 1,000 miles in 2012), and I played a little too much Skylanders Giants.

Before the break, I was contemplating writing a book about the open government movement in Raleigh with a focus on the characteristics of an open source city. I jotted down a few title ideas and drafted an outline in early December one Saturday morning. And I sat on that for a week or two. Letting the idea marinate. Continue reading →

Raleigh Code for America brigade launches Adopt-A-Shelter web application

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One of the latest projects I’m involved with…

Citizens interested in maintaining and monitoring their favorite City of Raleigh bus shelter now have a helping hand: the Adopt-A-Shelter interactive web application. Adopt-A-Shelter instantly displays the adoption status of all city bus shelters. Code for Raleigh, a recently formed Code for America brigade in Raleigh that includes volunteers from CityCamp Raleigh, deployed the application for use in Raleigh.

Code for Raleigh advocates for existing applications and technology created by Code for America, a national non-profit focused on improving government through technology. Code for Raleigh has recently deployed an Adopt-A-Shelter application at adoptashelter.raleighnc.gov highlighting 184 shelters available for adoption in Raleigh. Citizens can easily sign up for a one-year commitment to help keep Raleigh bus shelters clean for Capital Area Transit (CAT) riders. Continue reading →

A Partial Solution to the Wake County Bus Problem

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Dear Superintendent Tata,

The school bus my child rides, route 7, has been late three out of four days this week. The first day of school was a nightmare. I freaked out and drove my child to Dillard Drive so they wouldn’t be late on the first day. The greeters at the school were very nonchalant about the whole thing. “Oh, it’s just the first day of school, the buses are always late.” What?!?

Today, we waited over 30 minutes for the bus. It didn’t arrive until after 9:00am and school starts at 9:15am. Which is kind of late if you ask me. I could have driven my child to school and been back home in less time. It caused me to be late for my first meeting of the day. We need a solution. The tardiness doesn’t just impact the kids, it impacts the parents as well. And while I don’t understand the entire problem, I have a partial solution that can help parents save time and be more efficient. Continue reading →

The Code for America “brigade effect” with TriangleWiki

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Originally posted on opensource.com and licensed under Creative Commons BY-SA.

Have you ever seen results from your community engagement and realized the impact of your efforts? We recently told you about the LocalWiki project and shared some of the results from the Triangle Wiki day event. But then our friends at Code for America took it a step further.

The co-founders of LocalWiki were in the Code for America offices last week to see how they could build on the success of the Code Across America event. They took the data–633 page edits, 100 maps, and 138 new photos–and amplified it. Continue reading →

Triangle Wiki Day a Huge Success for Open Source in Raleigh

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Image credits: Laura Barnes Hamlyn

Image credits: Laura Barnes Hamlyn

Almost 50 people collaborated on February 25 at Red Hat headquarters, currently located on Centennial Campus in Raleigh, NC, to participate in Triangle Wiki Day. The event was a soft launch of trianglewiki.org, an effort to document the Triangle region and increase collaboration and knowledge sharing across the area. The wiki uses open source software, local wiki, as a content management platform that includes wiki pages, images, and mapping.

The day started off with a brief presentation [PDF] by Jason Hibbets on how the Triangle Wiki project fits in with the CityCamp Raleigh movement, as well as the larger open government picture and civic innovation week, Code Across America, by Code for America. Continue reading →

Peace corps for geeks and more from Govloop

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We’d like to highlight a few blog posts from GovLoop about open government and technology. In a previous post, we talked about GovLoop and the diversity and experience their community offers. It’s a social network for the government community, focused on connecting people and sharing information and boasting more than 45,000 members.

Here are a few posts that we think you’ll enjoy about capturing public comments, Code for America, and a new job and career resource. Continue reading →