Code for America, a US-based, civic non-profit has launched a new initiative, a civic startup accelerator. The goal of the project is to provide a leg-up to civic technology companies and disrupt the $140 billion government IT market. The organization is known for its flagship program which recruits technologists to serve as civic coders for [...]
In March, Harvard wrapped up its 2012 Harvard College Innovation Challenge. The challenge is put on by the Technology and Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard (TECH), part of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. This year, TECH and the Innovation Challenge launched a new award – the Public Sector Innovation Award – which looked for [...]
Social impact bonds have recently come into favor in the public sector as a means of financing projects that will impact communities where government funding is typically scarce. Social impact bonds allow governments to contract with a third party to fill gaps in available services, but unlike a standard procurement arrangement, these contracts are only [...]
Denver-based LegiNation has launched a new database – BillTrack50 which helps users navigate bills at the state level to find relevant current and proposed legislation. The database was announced at the NonProfit Technology Conference. Creators of the database point to recent public protests such as those over the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the [...]
Toronto is working on its next city budget with the help of its citizens. City officials opened up part of the budget to public debate and input through a series of outreach initiatives designed to get people more involved in municipal activities. The city held public roundtables, posted an online survey and asked citizens to [...]
President Barack Obama, Vice President Joseph Biden, First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden today launched Joining Forces, a national initiative to support and honor America’s service members and their families. Joining Forces is spearheaded by Mrs. Obama and Dr. Biden, who created the initiative to address the unique challenges and needs of military [...]
For those involved with civic hacking activities, the next phase is always up for debate. New applications, ideas and people are entering the space every day. The team behind Kajoo hopes to add a new spin on civic hacking with their application, which was launched over the weekend at SXSW. CivSource spoke with Dan Walmsley, [...]
Illinois is taking steps to protect its minority communities ahead of state redistricting. A new law will protect the voting rights of racial and language minority communities in the state by making it hard to divide up groups between several districts and effectively split votes. The Illinois Voting Rights Act of 2011, will allow for [...]
This week, Alexandria, Virginia launched a new twist on challenge based citizen engagement with ACTion Alexandria. ACTion Alexandria is an online citizen engagement initiative, that on the surface looks similar to other online idea platforms such as UserVoice or IdeaScale. However, unlike these off-the-shelf solutions, ACTion Alexandria leveraged its history as an offline organizing group [...]
In an effort to move local government public engagement strategies from complaint-driven affairs to problem-solving sessions, the National League of Cities has produced an action guide to help elected officials create a framework for civility and democratic governance. The guide mentions strategies, from utilizing Web 2.0 technologies to promoting volunteerism as ways to allow citizens [...]
