README: Civic Tech 101

[Mari]

Want to influence an open Civic Tech 101 course for new volunteers? Join Sung’s working session Practices, A Working Session at Brigade Congress on Sunday morning October 16th and/or put your comments in this Jamboard.

• Prompt: “When you see a course titled “Civic Tech 101”, what do you expect to learn in it?”
• Jamboard Instructions: Open this Jamboard. Then, create sticky notes with your answers to the prompt. Make sure to “+1” the items you agree should be part of this course/ curriculum!

Already have a civic tech 101 curriculum and want to share with the Network? Email Sung at skim@codeforamerica.org to discuss!

[Mari]

Here’s what folks shared in the Practices working session led by @sung and the participatory governance area:

• What does the civic part of civic tech mean?
• How much can I change?
• Important pieces that are less obvious. (what makes things “stick”? etc)
• “Good” Civic Tech vs “Bad” Civic Tech
• Procurement - what does that mean?
• The role of nonprofits in local government
• That gov services for poor people are intentionally hard to use. Who benefits, why, and how we can resist/confront that.
• Building power and why it’s necessary
• How different it is to operate in a collective culture compared to regular life.
• Human-centered design + development practices
• Who else is joining this environment with me
• Why is it important? To me? To my community?
• Introduction to basic concepts
• Who is involved w/ civic tech
• What’s next?
• How can I learn more?
• How does it benefit me?
• How to work w/ gov’t on tech projects
• Don’t settle for relieving administrative burden
• Interconnection and the hidden curriculum of life - Thad
• See also prompt for civic tech book club
• Ethics for coding for the public
• Practical lessons for improving coding skill
• Why civic tech is important
• What is the “civic” part of civic tech? (we all know the tech is the easy part.)
• How to embed yourself within gov infrastructure
• “The Government is us. We are the Government; you and I.” ← how does this look in practice?
• Who does it benefit?
• Local Government. How does it work?
• NGO; 501c3; non-profit, not for profit. Decoding the alphabet soup
• What programs can I use that the Gov also uses?
• How to turn my passions into action?
• What is civic tech?
• Example of civic tech in action
• The bridge and integration between civic & tech