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If you are looking for existing open source solutions to adopt/adapt locally, try here: http://commons.codeforamerica.org/
If you are looking to join or form a local group with similar goals, this is probably what you're looking for: http://codeforamerica.org/brigade/
Ey webmaven! Thanks for sharing that link! :-) That is a very nice tool (motivational too, even though Denmark isn't represented (yet!)). I might just as well start up a brigade of my own! It would be nice though if the platform behind CodeForAmerica was more international, since this feels like you can only help out the US (which is cool too) and not your local government in your own country. Maybe that's the next s…
Hey there Lichine, I can only answer from my perspective even though it'll look like a shameless plug (which it probably is). I'm the technical lead for a project called OpenSpending ( https://openspending.org/ ) which is a free/open source project that tries to track and analyse public expenditure and budgets throughout the world. We're always looking for people to help out. You could either work on the main site to…
First off, that's one awesome "shameless" plug. :-) I've been looking for a site / project that does this for so long, you can't even imagine. So thank you for sharing that, I will be checking it out more thoroughly later.
Second, that sounds like a great invitation, I might just jump aboard when I begin my "sabbatical". I actually have seen the site at Politiken (small world, huh?) and it's awesome to see that there are initiatives working on more economic transparency.
Thanks for the Open Knowledge link, that's definitely something I will look more into. On a sidenote, for the past couple of years I've taken an interest in medical science and how merging it with the digital industry could benefit society (think, real-time blood analytics for scientific research, modern overviews of disease and the teams currently working cures, etc.), so it's nice to see that a well-established organization do exist.
I will definitely ping you, also on any updates that might be relevant to you and your team (don't forget to say hi from me!).
Keep up the good work and thank you so much for sharing with me (and the rest of HN)!
- Anders
If you are looking for existing open source solutions to adopt/adapt locally, try here: http://commons.codeforamerica.org/
This looks really promising too! Thanks :-) I could add Aarhus to the map. Oh, if the site just said "CodeForTheWorld" or "CodeForYourCountry". Nothing against coding solely for America (that's totally cool too), it just feels a little odd to contribute solution for say Berlin, but have it published on a site marketed towards the US alone.
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Ey webmaven! Thanks for sharing that link! :-) That is a very nice tool (motivational too, even though Denmark isn't represented (yet!)). I might just as well start up a brigade of my own! It would be nice though if the platform behind CodeForAmerica was more international, since this feels like you can only help out the US (which is cool too) and not your local government in your own country. Maybe that's the next s…
http://codeforamerica.org/about/international/
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http://codeforamerica.org/about/international/
Well, there you go! :-D Thanks! Starting a program might be a little too much for me, but I know a few who I think would love to add Denmark on the map.
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Hey Jacob! Thanks a bunch for sharing your insights, it's really helpful to me. Your newspaper experience is very motivating too :-) In Aarhus, we do have an open data collection called ODAA ( http://www.odaa.dk/ ) that might be an avenue to pursue. A few developer friends and I have played around with it once, but we quickly discovered that despite it being relatively easy to just "make something", it's much harder…
If you know any journalists, I'm sure they'll have ideas -- They are (in my limited experience) intelligent and incredibly busy people, leaving them with little time to really dive in to every topic they see that interests them. Also, news organizations have been slow to catch up to the internet age. At least in the US, there are only a handful of papers REALLY diving into the app side of things. Thankfully that numb…
As for news orgs. to be a bit slow, I hear you completely! I conducted a closed workshop with a corporation that develops enterprise-level software for newspapers and you could literally wow them with simple CSS3 transitions and animations, let alone flexbox layouts. :-)
Motivation is a big factor for me too, I tend to dream about applying my skills to the common good, but end up creating either entertainment-based webapps and / or tools other web developers (https://github.com/AndersSchmidtHansen?tab=repositories).
I'll keep you in the know! I think that investing our skills into evolving our society (local and global) is the next, natural step for us geeks. ;-)
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Well, there you go! :-D Thanks! Starting a program might be a little too much for me, but I know a few who I think would love to add Denmark on the map.
If you can't commit to starting a Brigade on your own, perhaps the smaller step of joining the mailing list and looking for others to help might work better: https://groups.google.com/a/codeforamerica.org/forum/#!forum...
The Google groups tip is nice, that's a very nice idea. Thanks again!
Link: http://opencityapps.org/
One thing you could do is look through their apps (they're all open source & on github) and figure out which ones might make sense for your city.
You can then clone the apps you like, configure them for your city (many cities use the Socrata data platform, so this may be simply a config change in some cases) and deploy it for your city.