New America CA

The National Day of Civic Hacking (NDCH) is a national event, sponsored by the White House, taking place in over 50 cities across the country on June 1st and 2nd. It gives citizens an opportunity to do what is most quintessentially American: roll up our sleeves, get involved and work together to improve our society. We plan to kick off the National Day of Hacking with an event focused not on coding, but rather on developing ideas and prototypes to make government transparency efforts lead to better civic engagement. Community ideas and prototypes could range from things as simple as better signage for navigating City Hall and government offices, to developing a system that alerts the public when particular issues of personal concern appear before City Council.

This event is a creative, productive, and exciting way for Los Angelenos to volunteer while promoting civic and social engagement. Our target audience for NDCH is local government officials in cities throughout Los Angeles County, community leaders, citizen hacktivists, designers, and ordinary residents interested in finding ways to make local governmental transparency meaningful and engaging for the people of Los Angeles.

Over the three months following the NDCH, CA Civic Innovation (CCIP) staff will lead small workshops at which community members and local government staffers will more fully develop and vet prototypes in preparation for their use within government. The CCIP will work with local governments to implement the concepts, whether they be process improvements, technologies, or policies aimed at improving civic engagement through transparency.

Phase 1: National Day of Civic Hacking Event - LA Civic Lab launch (June 1, 2013)

The event will bring together participants from various sectors to collaborate on idea generation and prototyping civic tools to make government more transparent and engaging. Civic tools can range from policy improvements aimed at making information more engaging, to participatory projects like participatory budgeting, and could also include technology to easily enable collaborative writing of rules, policies, or guides. We expect that a variety of ideas and prototypes will surface that reflect the needs and desires of the community, and these tools will not be limited to only technology solutions.

Phase 2: Prototyping Workshops (June - August 2013)

Three to five small workshops will be held in Los Angeles to fully develop ideas and prototypes generated during the NDCH event. The workshops will be small scale, hands-on, two or three hour sessions. Teams or individuals that developed prototypes will receive and provide feedback, mentoring, and any additional support they might need. The goal is to ensure that the prototypes meet the needs of the community and can be supported by local governments. Prototypes resulting from the NDCH could include draft amendments to local policies, or a new SMS tool to connect neighbors and send alerts. Because of the short time frame, we do not expect fully functional, feature-rich tools to emerge from this process, but we will aim for prototypes that can be tested by local governments and residents.

Phase 3: Implement in Los Angeles County (September - November 2013)

CCIP will select two or three cities within Los Angeles County to implement the community prototypes. To ensure the projects represent community needs, the CCIP hopes to work closely with community members, organizations like Strategic Concepts in Organizing & Policy Education (SCOPE) and the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment, and the local government prior, during and post implementation.

Phase 4: Best Practices Reporting (December 2013)

This initiative will stimulate new collaboration by community stakeholders in the exploration and adoption of new civic tools, so documenting the best practices and other learnings from the process is of value to the region internally and externally. The project’s best practices will also be shared through the CCIP’s network of local governments and community organizations throughout California, and through existing networks of local government professional associations, in hopes that the model can be adapted to other communities. The visually engaging report will be released at the conclusion of the project.

Social connectedness is a determinant of a community's quality of life, and bringing people together to share ideas, ask questions, and co-create has the potential to establish long lasting relationships beyond the initial gathering. By creating a space where local government staff and the community can interact and collaborate, the NDCH event will lead to stronger networks between residents and government, resulting in longer-term civic and social engagement.