John Jones from the Case Foundation will give us a tour of what's working at the intersection of open source software and civic tech. See you there!

SESSION DESCRIPTION:
Open source software, technology that is shared and collaborated on between people and organizations worldwide, is a driving force behind the breakthrough achievements in the tech sector and broader private industry overall. We view open source software as a form of virtually limitless philanthropic potential. Once code becomes open source it can have unlimited benefactors and beneficiaries who can use, improve, and share that technology for their own benefit and for the benefit of the community.

However, in the social sector, we’ve observed that the core concepts behind open source, sharing and collaboration on technology solutions that benefit many interested parties, are largely missing. Why is it that not more social sector actors share and collaborate on part or whole technology projects? And is the sector taking full advantage of the wealth of open source resources already in existence thanks to the uncounted hours individuals and corporations have dedicated to open source? Are there a set of key barriers sector-wide preventing this? We’re exploring and seeking to answer questions like those this year with the goal that we may confidently identify and begin addressing those issues for the benefit of the sector.

This is an open & interactive discussion. Come to discuss a project you are working on or come to help give constructive feedback to others. We'll use breakout groups when the group gets large.

Presenter 1: Broadcouncil
Broadcouncil helps teams move quickly to an actionable plan. Every team needs to decide what to do, but the process to get there is tricky. Planning is the #1 source of wasted time at work, because most meetings are about future plans, and most wasted efforts stem from bad ones.
Existing tools (JIRA, Asana, Trello…) don’t help. They’re meant for tracking and assigning work, not deciding what to work on in the first place. Tools on the market treat plans as a list; we treat them as a network -- a cause and effect network. This makes it easy for teams to generate paths to their goals and understand the effects of their options.

Presenter 2: You?
Feel free to reach out to lucas@qiqochat.com!

This is an open & interactive discussion. Come to discuss a project you are working on or come to help give constructive feedback to others. We'll use breakout groups when the group gets large.

This is an open & interactive discussion. Come to discuss a project you are working on or come to help give constructive feedback to others. We'll use breakout groups when the group gets large.

This is an open & interactive discussion. Come to discuss a project you are working on or come to help give constructive feedback to others. We'll use breakout groups when the group gets large.

In this Friday Focus, we'll examine the Civic Tech News Feed (870+ sources). We'll give a brief orientation, look at how people are using it now, and ask members what improvements they'd like to see. The news feed is at https://fabric.qiqochat.com Full access is available to all Fabric members. Non-members may see the 50 most recent articles.

In this Friday Focus, we'll examine the Civic Innovation Slack Community (194 members). We'll give a brief orientation, look at how people are using it now, and ask members what improvements they'd like to see. If you have not yet joined Slack, you can do so here: https://civic-innovation-slack.herokuapp.com/ This is a free tool open to anyone interested in civic tech or solving public problems in general.

Update: The 40+ confirmed speakers are listed below.
Questions? Please contact our Chief Community Officer: katie@qiqochat.com.
Join the community on Slack here.

Event Theme: What are the biggest challenges & opportunities you see in civic tech and/or opengov in 2019?

The 2016 OpenGov & CivicTech Online Conference turned out great with 50 civic tech innovators, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders. Now we're back in 2019 and on track for 100+ participants.

Goals for this Event:
1. Convene leading thinkers and practitioners across the fields of civic tech.
2. Create space to address the challenges and opportunities our field is facing.
3. Help you spread the word about your organization and projects.

Cost: Member access to the Civic Tech News Feed and this online conference is $3/month. This event kicks-off a peer-to-peer community where anyone in civic tech will be able to connect with each other using Slack, Zoom video, a shared Google Calendar, and a shared Google Drive. There are many discussion forums in civic tech where people share written questions & answers, but there aren't many places where people can connect with each other live via phone/video, either scheduled or on-demand, so that's what we're building here.

Here are some of the conversations that presenters are leading:
- Justin Arenstein, Code for Africa: Can Civic Media Help Build Mass Adoption for Civic Technologies?
- Jay Hirschton, Full Circle Fund: Connecting the Tech Community to Civic Tech
- Margeaux Spring, Civic Data Alliance: Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility in or Civic Tech Spaces
- Kelly Halseth, Code for Canada: Civic tech at City Hall
- Krzysztof Madejski, Code for All Network: Challenges and opportunities for a global civic tech network
- Mark Frischmuth, DemocracyLab: Online Infrastructure to Connect Civic Tech Stakeholders
- Iyanuoluwa, BudgIT Foundation: Civic Tech Solutions; How do we scale?
- Lawrence Grodeska, CivicMakers, LLC: The Culture Stack — How Can We Cultivate Resilient & Responsive Civic Organizations?
- Marc Joffe, Center for Municipal Finance: Machine-Readable Financial Statements for Local Government
- David Fridley, Synaccord, LLC: Modern Obstacles to Democratic Discourse and the Opportunity for Large Scale Dialog and Deliberation
- Bentley Davis, Reason Score: An experimental tool increase agreement in facts and group rational decisions
- Kara Andrade, Counterpart International: Rapid Prototyping for Social Change
- Tom Tresser, The CivicLab: "The TIF Illumination Project" - Data Driven Organizing
- Shin-pei Tsay, Gehl Institute: Data for the public realm
- Elisa Huntley, Two Gather: Using Technology to End Homelessness
- Abhi Nemani, University of Chicago & EthosLabs: The Challenges and Opportunities for Investing in GovTech
- Matt Stempeck, The Civic Tech Field Guide: The Civic Tech Field Guide
- Monique Wingard, The Civic Tech Collective: Forging Past the Fear: Your Voice Matters
- David Newman, E-Consultation Research Group on behalf of Green Party of England and Wales: Digital inclusion in a political conference
- Robert Bell, Intelligent Community Forum: Preparing Your People for the Coming of the Robots
- Justyna Krygowska, The Andrew Goodman Foundation: A lot of the proposed topics can work for what we would have to share. Is there potential for collaboration?
- Rob Richie, FairVote: New Tools to Win Electoral Reform: The Case of Ranked Choice Voting
- Maria Yuan, IssueVoter: Why "How to Contact Congress" Is What's Wrong with Congress
- Janine Anderson, Hearken: You've got participation! Now what?
- Lisa Matthews, National Conference on Citizenship: Civic Data, Civic Health, Civic Renewal
- Prabu Naidu, Facilitators Network Singapore: Equipping Everyone with Facilitation Skills, the Singapore Experience
- Pearce Godwin, Listen First Project: Building the Collaborative National Conversation Project Platform to Mainstream #ListenFirst Conversations
- Erika Owens, OpenNews: Journalism tech as a force for open data
- John Wood, Better Angels: Melding Digital Community and Physical Community
- Greg Bloom, Open Referral: Community Resource Directories and the Future of Knowledge and Democracy
- Samantha Sunne, MisinfoCon: Overcoming misinformation as an obstacle to online discourse
- Roshen Sethna, Exygy: Building the First Open Source Affordable Housing System in the San Francisco Bay Area
- Eli MacLaren, Business Innovation Factory: Shifting our Len: Using Human Insights to Drive CivicTech Business Models
- Dee Washington, Circle Forward Partners: Addressing power dynamics in collaborative self-governance
- Seth Turner, Congressional Management Foundation: The Rise and Decline of Mass Email Campaigns' Influence on Congressional Decisions
- Eli MacLaren, Business Innovation Factory: Shifting our Lens: Using Human Insights to Drive CivicTech Business Models
- Tammy Esteves, Troy University: The intersection of smart city technology, emergency management, and sustainability
- Maureen K. McCarthy & Zelle Nelson, Center for Collaborative Awareness: How to Co-Design Group Relationships: the Blueprint of We Collaboration Document
- Zelle Nelson & Maureen K. McCarthy, Center For Collaborative Awareness: The Neuroscience of Collaboration
- Christoph Berendes, Facilitation Analytics/The Communications Center: When "power" is a factor, what questions will guide civictech to good results? (A conversation)
- Juan Pablo Ruiz, Wingu - Tecnología Sin Fines de Lucro: Civic-Tech in Latin America and how to collaborate with governments

Connect with other innovators and share what you're working on!
This is also a chance for many of our newest members to check out the format of these interactive events before the 2019 OpenGov & CivicTech Online Conference on Feb 21st.

Connect with other innovators and share what you're working on.

Connect with other innovators and share what you're working on!
This is the first event in the series.