Technologists Aid City Governments

Few would place an anemic online presence near the top of the list of problems facing American city governments. Nonetheless, a group called Code for America has made its mission to pair ambitious Web developers with city governments to create streamlined, modern Web-based applications to create solutions to vexing problems of governance.
 
Code for America, founded by Jennifer Pahlka and modeled after Teach for America, is a non-partisan 501(c)(3) Silicon Valley startup that is focused on “helping American cities use Web technology to do a better job of providing services to citizens,” according to its website. It is supported by a number of donors and venture firms, as well as by the cities it works with.
 
Code for America’s fellows are selected from a pool of recent coding-trained college graduates, programmers, designers, and business and project managers. The twenty developers in its freshman class, selected from a pool of 360 applicants, were placed with city agencies in Boston, Philadelphia, Seattle, and Washington, D.C., last year and began working on projects in January. The four partner cities were chosen from eleven applicants.
 
Each city has been assigned five developers, who will spend just under a year developing projects to help the city better serve its residents. The fellows in each city are expected to conduct more than 100 interviews each with interested parties to identify problems that technology can address with the greatest impact.
 
Code for America’s director of strategy and communications, Abhi Nemani, says that the process of selecting participating cities is rigorous. “We want people who really want to work with us,” he says. “We need deep partners.”
 
In Boston, the first fruits of the Code for America team’s labors have already begun to bear fruit. Late last month, after only weeks of work, the team created a prototype for “Where’s My Bus?” a mobile application that allows city residents to track the location of city buses in real time. Another application, “Adopt a Hydrant” helps the city generate donations to repair and replace damaged fire hydrants. Also in development is an online platform that aims to facilitate constant, personalized communication between the city’s 56,000 public school students, teachers, parents, and administrators.
 
Namani announces to C&E that Code for America has recently received an application from the New York City Department of Education for 2012. New York City had previously declined the opportunity to work with Code for America because of the prohibitive cost of the $250,000 initial investment Code requires from its participant cities. This decision has received some criticism, with some arguing that the program is a way to save money. For instance, the digital media blog NY Convergence quotes Philadelphia city Division of Technology Chief of Staff Jeff Friedman to the effect the services provided by his city’s team of Code for America developers would cost around $1.48 million in consulting costs.
 
“Our goal is to make government better,” says Nemani. “Just getting people engaged is great.” Code for America has just begun the 2012 fellowship recruitment process. It expects to receive more applicants this year than last.
 Noah Rothman is the online editor at C&E. Email him at nrothman@campaignsandelections.com