betanyc

[betanyc]

migrating to https://beta.nyc

dear friend, we’re migrating to wordpress and you can find us at https://beta.nyc 

[betanyc]

BetaNYC’s testimony to NY City Council Committee on Technology – Open Data oversight hearing 1 Oct 2015

Dear Chairman Vacca and Councilmembers,

New York City's open data ecosystem one of the world's best. We are very sorry that BetaNYC's leadership can't be there in person.

First, BetaNYC and NYC open data community has experienced an amazing 18 months. We are excited to see the Council and this administration commit to making open data work for all.

Our community's explosive growth is a testimony to the success of the City's open data program. We are excited to work with the the Council, the Mayor's Office, and Agencies improve access to information and build a government for the people, by the people, for the 21st century.

This testimony is broken into three parts:

A recap of BetaNYC's partnership with NYC open data ecosystem.

An introduction to NYC's Civic Innovation Fellowship, a program to strengthen open data use within government.

Methods to strengthen our open data ecosystem.

As of this month, BetaNYC's community 3,000 members strong.

We continue to offer weekly open data programing to all who want to learn.

In February, we partnered with the Mayor's Office of Data Analytics (MODA) to host our third winter hackathon, Code Across NYC. At this event, over 600 people attended to learn about the City's open data program and to use data, technology, and design to improve their communities.

In August, Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS) unveiled an updated City Record with improved events data that allows you to subscribe to local public hearing notifications. Throughout that process, we worked to educate DCAS and the Mayor's Office of Technology and Innovation (MOTI) on the value of detailed location data. We hope to continue this partnership, and continuously improve the City Record's data.

Currently, we are a part of NYC BigApps–providing a community data platform and evening workspace for projects to develop.

Community tools that power NYC's open data ecosystem

Last October, we launched Citygram.NYC. Over the last year, we have improved the program where you can subscribe to 311 service alerts, vehicle collisions, and restaurant inspections.

http://www.citygram.nyc

In the Spring, we launched two community support tools.

First, we launched NYC's community data portal - Data.Beta.NYC. It is a community data portal designed for NYC by NYC. We have a five person, volunteer team maintaining 112 datasets and assisting 19 organizations.

http://data.beta.nyc

Data.beta.nyc is an example how agencies can inexpensively run their own data portals. Additionally, we think we have solve the perplexing issue of conversations around datasets.

https://talk.beta.nyc

In complement to data.beta.nyc, we launched talk.Beta.NYC -- online home for NYC's civic tech community. "Talk" is the central clearing house for questions on the city's open data, civic tech events, and thematic workgroups. On average we have 400 monthly users.

...this is just the beginning.

Introducing NYC's Civic Innovation Fellowship

In partnership with Manhattan Borough President's office, we've launched the NYC Civic Innovation Fellowship (CIF). This program is building the next generation of civic hackers, policy wonks, and hopefully a few City Council members.

We are creating new working relationships between NYC Community Boards and the next generation of community leaders through training and employment in human-centered, data-driven decision making.

Our objectives are three fold:

Community Boards - Build capacity through digital civic literacy and mapping, planning, and improvements tools.

CUNY Service Fellows - Educate and empower a new generation of community leaders who know how to use civic design, technology, and open data.

Borough Presidents' Offices - To train & support Community Boards to better communicate and engage with their constituents.

In the short term (next 5 years), a successful outcome of the CIF program would be the establishment of a basic, effective curriculum and the solidification of the relationship between Community Boards and the Service Corps program. These accomplishments would improve the experiences of both youth and Community Board members as well as increase the NYC’s commitment to (and implementation of) open data quality & standards. After two successful cycles completed for Manhattan Community Boards, the program will reach out to the other 4 Borough President’s offices with the eventual goal of establishing the program for all 5.

In the long term (5-10 years), the goal of the project is to expand the number of participating youth and Community Boards. Ultimately the program should be able to accommodate Community Boards from all five boroughs, as well as have the resources in place to serve City Council member offices, as well as selected New York State Senate and Assembly offices in the same fashion.

Opportunities to strengthen NYC's open data practice

BetaNYC's future depends on a mature open data program. Our ideas are not directly in conflict with any of these pieces of legislation. We can see that the Council has listened to our observations and worked to inshrine them into law. We are thankful and grateful for having an attentive City Council.

In general, we see the underlying message behind these bills as a much needed adjustment to the City's existing open data law. With a shared frustration, we too want a more transparent, accessible, and accountable open data program.

Here are our recommendations to improve our shared frustrations.

Into 0916-2015 - Compliance audit

We would love to have an oversight body that doesn't cherry pick oversight. We need a body who's mission is to fully engage with the community of data users and provide detailed assessments of how and where improvements can be made.

This might be an opportunity to invigorate the Commission on Public Information and Communication (COPIC) who has a mandate to oversee the City's public information.

Int 0915-2015 - Updating datasets

In a paper world, three day notifications are great. In the digital world, notifications are instant. If agencies were resourced to run their own open data portals, we believe we would receive higher quality data and notifications. By developing an ecosystem of data portals, there would be no need to "send data" to the city's single open data portal.

We believe that the City can maintain efficient open data management tools. There are many open source data management tools that are operated by small teams. These teams collaborate with each other to maximize feature development.

Fundamentally, agencies need to be responsible for their own data. We feel that empowering agencies to own and manage their own open data repositories will give the public better access to data handlers and improving data quality.

We encourage the City to explore the use of open source data management tools to ensure that data quality is increased and agency empowerment is maximized.

Int 0890-2015 - Archiving of datasets

This proposed legislation is exciting but offers two questions.

To what extend to we need archival data?

Why don't we consider the technical standard's manual a living document?

To what extend to we need archival data?

In an ideal world, we copy every bit and have them behind a version controlled, application programming interface. This would provide an ideal time machine!

Our current experience indicates our current open data practice is really bad at time travel. We have no data dictionaries, a variety of formats, and at times conflicting data. Not only do we share the desire for historical data, we are passionate about agencies having the internal capacity to improve their data quality.

Our City's open data practice needs to expand their technical resources to own and maintain a variety of data ideals. We need additional talent to help agencies liberate data, consider their long term use, and ensure data proliferation.

For the last two years, we have encouraged the City to join us in an open conversation to update the technical standards manual. We have always seen the standards manual as a living document.

We always thought having the public help update the standards manual was part of the plan. The current legislation doesn't ensure the standards manual is updated with public participation.

We agree that the open standards manual needs to be updated, and the public should be included. To strengthen this legislation, public engagement needs to be enshrined in the City's open data law.

Int 0898-2015 - plain language data dictionary

We absolutely agree that every dataset needs a data dictionary. This issue brings up a fundamental issue of who is maintaining our data formats, data quality, and what is the long term plan to empower agencies to maintain their own data?

This bill makes it clear we need more communication around datasets, and we're not sure that singling out additional data dictionaries is the appropriate solution.

First, we do need data dictionaries. Second, we need conduits to data maintainers and subject matter experts to improve errors. We created talk.beta.nyc as a home to help address this issue.

We hope to work with the Council and the Mayor's office to help improve access our City's datasets maintainers.

Int 0900-2015 - standardizing addresses

We think that this issue is closely related improving the technical standards manual. We shouldn't have to legislate specific data formats–addresses included. Then again, some of our most frustrating conversations around the City Record's data were around address data standardization.

While we feel uncomfortable mandating address location data, we do feel that all addresses need to be as detailed as possible. As address are added to the City's data portal, they should be converted to human readable formats. Every agency should maximize the City's own geocoder.

Lastly, we need agencies to own this issue. We can not depend on DOITT to be responsible for all data translation issues. We need participating agencies to be empowered to improve their own data. Addresses are just one small part of the data ownership issue.

Int 0908-2015 - sharing FOIL data

We believe that all FOIL'ed data should be made available and the City should default to open. This bill expresses that intent, but is vague around prioritization. Additionally, it doesn't address how those datasets would be kept up to date, nor how FOIL'ed records would impact the release of the larger dataset.

Int 0914-2015 - responding to dataset requests

We are in absolute agreement around dataset request transparency and building platforms for public <> government engagement.

Looking at the City's own data, there are close to 180 datasets requests. Six have been approved; seven rejected.

From our experience, we need more agency engagement. We need conversations with the dataset's owner, identify the important dataset parts, and have an ongoing conversations about data quality. We don't always need more data, we need better data.

Conclusion

These are very exciting times. New York City has one of the World's best open data ecosystems. To have so many Councilmembers actively interested in improving NYC's open data ecosystem is important. We can not build the future without you.

While we support the intent of these bills, we are not sure all of these bills need to move forward. We encourage the Council to act as a broker and bring together dataset users and agency maintainers to address our issues.

In conclusion, we thank the Council, the Administration, and this Committee's leadership in bringing us where we are today. Your leadership is indispensable in building an open data ecosystem for all.

If you have feedback or comments please leave them on talk.beta.nyc

[betanyc]

National Day of Civic Hacking, NYC 2015

For this year's National Day of Civic Hacking, we're partnering with OpenStreetMap and State of the Map US! State of the Map US is the annual conference for all OpenStreetMap users. No matter whether you’re entirely new to OpenStreetMap or whether you’re an experienced hand, this conference is for you. OpenStreetMap is entirely open data and it is becoming critical infrastructure for an increasing number of non profits, governments and businesses. BetaNYC wants you to learn all that you can possibly know about OpenStreetMap. Check out State of the Map's amazing program. This year State of the Map is throwing one huge event for the world wide OpenStreetMap community hosted at the United Nations Headquarters. We’re inviting everyone to join - seasoned mappers, newcomers, non profits, businesses, governments, schools, universities - everyone with an interest in OpenStreetMap. Come out and join us for two days of talks and one hack day to celebrate OpenStreetMap, share your experience, discuss the future of the project and learn from each other. Register today!

Don't forget to use the discount code of "BetanycLovesOSM" for $90.00 tickets.

[betanyc]

BetaNYC supports NYC’s Council 2.0

BetaNYC is excited to see the NYC Council build upon advice from NYC's civic tech community. As we noted in last year's rules reform hearing, we strongly feel that listening sessions are the best medicine for technology development.

Second, we hope that the Council builds upon the great work the New York State Senate has accomplished. For the last six years, the State Senate has produce a number of open source tools that lower the cost of govtech. From open source content management systems, to bill tracking, to constituent relationship database, the State Senate's award winning examples should be seen as Council 2.0's foundation.

Having personally worked for the State Senate to develop these open source tools, I feel the Council is best served by creating a Council Chief Information Officer. The Council's plan looks great, but the devil is in the details. Political will move development forward, but hiring in-house technical talent is key. One can not simply outsource such a grand vision.

Lastly, BetaNYC is excited to work with the Council to demystify civic technology and open data. In the coming year, we will partner with Data and Society to develop a civic technology curriculum. This curriculum will focus on demystifying technology, data, and design to City Council and Community Board offices.

New Yorkers are very lucky to have a Council ready to embrace the community and literacy to make make Council 2.0 a reality.

Noel Hidalgo Executive Director

[betanyc]

#CodeAcross NYC 2015 Recap!

Thank you for three days of awesome! This year’s CodeAcross NYC was the largest and most diverse to date. Thank you for making these three days wonderful.

For those of you who couldn’t attend all of it, here is how you can catchup!

Watch archived livestreamed videos via the Internet Society of New York.

Check out new projects on projects.beta.nyc

Share your photos and videos on talk.beta.nyc or to flickr.

YOU WERE AWESOME!!

For those of you who couldn’t stay to the every end, here is what we accomplished!

180 joined us at Microsoft to kick off CodeAcross with Dr. Mashriki, NYC’s Chief Analytics Officer! 

For our hackathon and unconference at CivicHall, 225 joined us for Saturday and 135 joined us on Sunday. That's 2,970 hours worth of hacking, education, and collaboration!!

For those two days, YOU hosted 37 one-hour long unconference sessions on the past, present, and future of civic tech, open data, and open government.

16 of you took a SIX hour long workshop on how to use NYC’s 311 data, CartoDB, Socrata, and Census Reporter

NYC’s Community Data portal now has 62 datasets!!

During the hackathon

Ten projects were added to BetaNYC’s projects page. Three were functional web apps and three set up a process to create new datasets.

At the end, we threw an awesome pizza party AND the community honored the following projects!

Athena Civic Insights was certified awesome with the following honors: the Best of Show, Best Data Visualization, and Best 21 & Under team. (Working Code - GitHub)

Mapping Unplanned MTA Service Alerts was certified awesome with the following honors: Best User Experience and Best Map Hack. (GitHub)

Am I Rent Stabilized was certified awesome with the following honors: Won Most Creative Use of Data. (Working Code - GitHub)

City Record Online Workgroup was certified awesome with the following honors: Best Scraper Team (GitHub - Workgroup)

Honorable mention goes to the following projects who worked their asses off.

NYC Rent Stabilization Unit Counts (GitHub)

App for Bustime  (GitHub)

CityGram.NYC (Working Code - GitHub)

Homeward (GitHub)

Honda Civic Apps (GitHub)

NYPD Data Comparisons (GitHub)

Thank you

CodeAcross NYC 2015 wouldn’t have been possible if it wasn’t for Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, Council Member Ben Kallos, Ben Wellington, Terrance Becket, Lauren Rennee, Noel Hidalgo, Nathan Storey, Hayley Richardson, Ben Arancibia, Lucio Tolentino, Volkan Unsal, Joel Natividad, the Ontodia team, the Civic Hall staff, the Microsoft Civic Tech NYC team, Marc Shifflett, Madhu, Emily Tsai, Aidan Feldman, Josselin Phillipe, Emily Goldman, Eran Livne, Doneliza Joaquin, Taylor Kuhn, Max Galka, Nancy Chien, James O'Toole, and Rich Prescott!!! Thank you for making magic happen!

Thanks to Red Hat and Socrata for sending staff. Thanks to CartoDB and Twilio for discount codes! Thank you to our community partners who helped us expand our outreach and impact! The Mayor's Office of Data Analytics (MODA) is New York City's civic intelligence center, allowing the City to aggregate and analyze data from across City agencies, to more effectively address crime, public safety, and quality of life issues. The office uses analytics tools to prioritize risk more strategically, deliver services more efficiently, enforce laws more effectively and increase transparency. Microsoft Tech & Civic Engagement - We collaboratively addresses the most pressing community challenges through the creation, deployment, and evangelism of civic technology. Accela provides civic engagement solutions for government. Accela’s solutions uniquely address the diverse needs of their constituents by making publicly available information more accessible. The Accela Civic Platform includes solutions for land management, asset management, licensing and case management, legislative management, right of way management, citizen relationship management, recreation and resource management, environmental health and safety. Code for America’s Brigade program is an international network of people committed to using their voices and hands, in collaboration with local governments, to make their cities better. Civic Hall is New York City’s new home for the civic innovation movement. We use technology, open data, and networks to make our communities, cities, and government work more effectively. New York Tech Meetup is the largest meetup group in the world and a non-profit organization representing professionals from all parts of the New York technology community. NYTM builds programs and partnerships to support the growth and diversification of the city’s technology industry. Silicon Harlem was formed to galvanize upper Manhattan companies and residents to embrace our model to Transform Harlem into a Technology and innovation Hub that thrives in the digital economy. Light and Eye Photography Full service photography for weddings, design firms, development shops, ad agencies, non-profit organizations, and individuals. ISOC-NY is the Greater New York Metropolitan Area chapter of the Internet Society (ISOC). We are a 501(c)3 non-profit. The mission of (ISOC-NY) is: 1. in support of ISOC, to assure the beneficial, open evolution of the global Internet, 2. to promote local initiatives, maximize the societal benefits which the Internet can bring to the New York area, and 3. to advance the professional development of ISOC members in the New York area.  

[betanyc]

Testimony to @NYCcouncil on @NotifyNYC & other notification tools

Today’s @NYCCouncil hearing on @NotifyNYC, @JamesVacca13 includes http://t.co/aEMg87Ul1R! pic.twitter.com/lcmPLb0Vy7

— BetaNYC (@BetaNYC)

March 2, 2015

BetaNYC's Testimony on Notify NYC and other notification tools, a google doc with comments enabled

Dirk Kelly, one of CityGram.NYC's maintainers, Testimony, a google doc with comments enabled

[betanyc]

Miranda Neubauer proves a great recap on last week's #CodeAcross NYC!!!

Civic Technology group BetaNYC was lead organizer of the New York event at Civic Hall in Flatiron to encourage civic technologists to engage with city open data and build tools to make government services more accessible. Other partners were Microsoft, New York Tech Meet-up, Silicon Harlem, the Mayor's Office of Data Analytics, Code for America's brigade program and the Internet Society.

[betanyc]

Launching talk.beta.nyc, NYC’s online home to #civictech, #opendata, & #opengov!

LET US TALK!

Talk.Beta.NYC is NYC’s online home for civic technology, open data, and open government!

About talk.beta.nyc

“TALK” is a collection of communities who are fighting for a 21st century city. Built on the open source Discourse.org platform and customized by Volkan Unsal and Ontodia, TALK.beta.NYC is NYC’s one stop shop for all conversations relating to civic technology, open data, open government, BetaNYC’s workgroups, and the City’s data.

Discourse is a 100% open source platform. It is designed for touch devices and optimized for reading. As members become trusted regulars, they earn abilities to help maintain the ecosystem. Though community moderation and likes, the community helps curates the good stuff! Similar to twitter or facebook, we have the @and private messages. All-in-all, it is a community conversation platform designed for the 21st Century.

Talk wouldn't be possible without the generous support of Digital Ocean and Code For America’s Brigade Program.

Communities

TALK.beta.NYC is a platform for NYC's open communities. This platform is offered for free for all conversations relating to NYC’s civic tech, open data, and open government! As of 25 Feb, all of BetaNYC’s workgroups and discussion groups have moved to talk.

This online platform is designed to incorporate as many communities as possible. If you are a community group that deals with open data, civic technology, and open government, contact us attalk+admin@beta.nyc.

Why Talk?

New York City’s civic technology ecosystem is growing rapidly. In 2015, there are dozens of communities.

As we have grown rapid, so have our problems...

The community workgroup problem:

Over the past year, BetaNYC discovered how hard it was to maintain several google groups. To keep things straight we created a spreadsheet that kept growing and growing and growing, example BetaNYC’s data resources spreadsheet. Then, just last month, we had a situation where three different workgroups were discussing NYC's snow plow data. Those three groups should have been talking to each other.

Talk provides a central location for all of these communities.

The data discussion problem:

While NYC’s open data program is ranked number 1, it can be better. Like any technical object, objects need platforms for discussion. Nothing is black and white. For example, Aaron Swartz said

The problem is that reality doesn’t live in the databases. Instead, the databases that are made available, even if grudgingly, form a kind of official cover story, a veil of lies over the real workings of government. Aaron Swartz - Transparency is Bunk

Yes, data is a story that needs to be probed and analyzed. Stories need to come out and then advocacy is layered on top. When data is produced, it tells a story -- not all stories. For NYC’s data program to improve, we need a platform for data conversations. As a prototype, we present talk and have integrated it with NYC’s community data portal, DATA.beta.nyc. These two tools bring datasets alive and enable open conversations.

Read about data and talk integration on Ontiodia's blog.

The stakeholder problem:

Not only are there specific issues, we need a platform that enables end users, data stakeholders, and data maintainers to have broad conversations. NY’s MTA has demonstrated how an email list can address users’ needs. This is a great example of the future, but how do you expand that to the City’s 100 agencies?! 100 google groups? No.

We see talk as centralized platform to enable all stakeholders - government and the public - to collaborate. We are already exploring options and will continue to provide a safe space for all.

Join us!

NYC is fortunate to have the density and resources to build one of the most robust municipal open data programs in the world.

We present TALK as a platform for the 21st Century. Join us as we build a city, for the people, by the people, for the 21st Century.

General Discussion Boards:

General Discussions - https://talk.beta.nyc/c/general-discussion

Developers Corner - https://talk.beta.nyc/c/devs-corner

NYC’s Civic Tech Jobs Board - https://talk.beta.nyc/c/jobs

Workgroups:

City Record Online workgroup: https://talk.beta.nyc/c/working-groups/city-record-online

CityGram.NYC workgroup: https://talk.beta.nyc/c/working-groups/citygram

Open Data workgroup: https://talk.beta.nyc/c/working-groups/open-data

Data.Beta.NYC support group: https://talk.beta.nyc/c/working-groups/ckan

Other important links

FAQ

Code of Conduct & Anti-Harassment Policy

Privacy Policy

Terms of Service

GitHub Issue Cue

[betanyc]

An exclusive look into AirBnB's NYC rental data.

If you've been following the discussion around AirBnB, many see it as a platform for illegal hotels. Absent from the conversation has been raw data around who is sharing their home, apartment, or who is acting as a broker for a number of units. Here is your opportunity to draw your own conclusion. 

Check out InsideAirBnB.com for exclusive access to NYC's AirBnB rental activity. Don't forget to download the data.

[betanyc]

Announcing #CodeAcross NYC, NYC's #OpenData festival

Join us Feb 21st & 22nd as we celebrate the #1 open data city in America!

#CodeAcross NYC is a two day festival of, or related to, liberating government data. We are bringing together government, community based organizations, innovators, academics, and individuals to create effective uses of NYC’s data. CodeAcross NYC is open to all ages. If you can edit a word processing or spreadsheet document, we have a challenge for you!

CodeAcross NYC is in partnership with International Open Data Hackathon and Code for America! This year’s event is hosted by CivicHall and generously supported by NYC’s Microsoft Civic team.

Register today at https://codeacrossnyc2015.eventbrite.com

[betanyc]

THE_MESSAGE - 2015.05! Digging out and going to Queens!

Friend's there are three quick things we want to share with you!

+ Hacknights in Queens + CodeAcross NYC 2015  + BetaNYC's 2015 Diversity and Desires Report

-=-=-

++ Hacknights in Queens ++

This week, we kickoff our Queens hacknights with Coalition for Queens! Join us as we add our third borough and spread the civic hacking love! For those of you who haven't attended a hacknight, you should do two things: 1. check out the hacknight page and leave a comment on what you want problem you want to solve here. 2. join BetaNYC's Developers group and introduce yourself.

If you can't join us in Queens, we'll be back in Manhattan on 4 Feb.

-=-=-

++ CodeAcross NYC 2015 ++

We are finalizing the details for our third annual data day and want you to save the date!

On February 21 and 22, join us as we teach, make, and create tools relating to NYC’s data. Join us for two fun filled days of classes, workshops, unconference sessions, coding, scraping, parsing, and partying.

Day's Outcomes: + Teach how to use and interpret NYC’s Open Data. + Make new open data by scraping or unlocking static data. + Create tools and prototypes that help us understand the city’s open data.

Save the date RSVP list < http://codeacrossnyc.splashthat.com/ >

-=-=-

++ BetaNYC's 2015 Diversity and Desires Report ++

In follow up to the People Roadmap to a Digital New York City, this community co-authored a diversity and desires report. If you are interested in making tools to help all New Yorkers, you should read this report. In it, we outline key municipal and community demographics, and how BetaNYC seeks to address these challenges.

To build a more connected New York City, BetaNYC is committed to the following 2015 goals:

Help the city improve its open data and civic technology practice.

Partner with allied organizations to host weekly hacknights across the city.

Develop a “Civic Technologist / Hacker” curriculum.

For now, this document lives as a google doc and you are welcome to comment on its passages.

[betanyc]

Why Open Data is Still Too Closed - My TEDxNewYork Talk

Through I Quant NY, I’ve worked to tell the hidden data stories about the way New York City runs, and the way we experience it.  But along the way, I’ve learned that as far as our city has come with Open Data, there are some simple steps that would allow for even more revealing insights.  I shared some of those ideas during my TEDxNewYork talk a few months back.   If you enjoy the talk, and believe in its message that “open data is still too closed”, please share! 

[betanyc]

THE_MESSAGE - 2015.03! Hacknights, Must see video, and JOBS, JOBS, JOBS, JOBS!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

"The_Message" is BetaNYC's newsletter named after Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five's rap. Join our meetup and learn how to keep from going under. 

Agenda * Hacknights in Manhattan and Queens * Recap of our BetaTalk with NYC's First Chief Tech Officer * NYC.gov is looking to hire a few good civic hackers * BetaNYC in the News * How to support BetaNYC in 2015

  =+=  2015 Hacknights!  =+= This is going to be a super exciting year! Last night, we kicked off our Manhattan hacknights at New Work City! It has long been our goal to diversity hacknight locations. 

Today, we announce a partnership with Coalition for Queens, and add Queens to our tri-borough presence! Join us!

Upcoming Hacknights and events: - 21 Jan, Civic Hacknight in Manhattan - 28 Jan, Civic Hacknight in Queens - 4 Feb, Civic Hacknight in Manhattan - 11 Feb, Civic Hacknight in Manhattan - 20 Feb, Code Across NYC 2015 (This is a save the date for our weekend long code & edit-athon)  - 25 Feb, Civic Hacknight in Queens

  =+= 2-2-2-2 =+= Recap of our BetaTalk with NYC's First Chief Tech Officer

Speaking of an exciting new year, we are honored to have Minerva Tantoco at the City's first Chief Technology Officer.

Shortly before 2014 closed, we sat down with her at Microsoft Civic. If you haven't had a chance to hear her amazing story and what her office is looking to do, WATCH THE VIDEO!

  =+= 3-3-3-3 =+= NYC GOV is looking for a few good civic hackers, data scientists, and project managers.

Just as CTO Tantoco mentioned in her video, the Mayor's Office of Technology and Innovation is looking to hire a number of civic hackers. FOR US TO DO OUR JOB, WE NEED THE BEST CANDIDATES IN THESE POSITIONS! If you want to service you City from within City Hall, apply to these jobs today!!

- MOTI Technology Solutions Manager (179141 - Note, there are two openings!!) - MOTI Product Manager, R & D (179778) - MOTI Project Manager (180053 - Note, there are two openings!!) - MOTI Director of Strategy (179139) - MOTI Tech & Innovation Policy Advisor (179144) - MOTI Innovation Advisor (179601) - MOTI Chief of Staff (179134)

If you are into data science and want to get an inside track on using the City's data, check own NYC Analytic's positions. Note, there are FOUR positions open!

- MODA Data Analyst (172461)

Additionally, DORIS (Department of Records & Information Services) is looking for two talents techs.

- Director for NYC Records Management (180279) - Senior IT Project Manager (179618)

Note: If these links don't work, search Indeed.com or the City's jobs search for the job title or the job code.

  =+= 4-4-4-4 =+= BetaNYC is in the News!!

- Holiday Shopping: A Civic App Wish List for 2015 - Data advocates testify on next steps for 311 and transportation data - More Bus Data, Better Bus Service: Kallos, Hackers Nudge MTA - Councilman, advocates call for improving police data - Sign-up problems plague start of municipal ID program

  =-= $-$-$-$ =-= Help sustain BetaNYC!!

BetaNYC is New York City’s civic tech and open government community. Last year, we hosted 54 events demystifying open data and government, worked with transportation advocates to improve NYPD’s crash data, we got the City Council to adopt 21st century rules, and worked with the Council and the Mayor to put the City’s Laws, Charter, and Record online and in a machine readable format. To date, we have helped the City adopt three open government and data laws.

Join us as we march into the future, together. Donate today!

[betanyc]

THE MESSAGE 2014.51 - NYC's CTO needs your help & a flashlight on 2015!

Wednesday night was historic! For the first time, New York City’s First Chief Technology Officer sat down with NYC’s civic technology community and talked about her past, her dreams, and our future.

Here’s the short story; CTO Tantoco is “punk in pinstripes” civic hacker. She made it clear that the City’s IT policy, technology, data, leadership, and services needs to accessible to all New Yorkers. Her job is to bend competing forces toward serving the greater good.

We are honored to have Minerva Tantoco as New York City’s FIRST Chief Technology Officer.

For those of you who couldn't attend, don’t fear. The Internet Society of New York recorded the event, and it should be online within a week. Also, there were many great tweets.

In the meantime, CTO Tantoco has two questions for you.

What do you want to see from NYC’s CTO and the Mayor’s office of Technology and Innovation?

Where do you see civic engagement in 10 years?

< http://bit.ly/betanyc-cto-question >

  # NEXT YEAR

Last night culminated an exciting year of activism and programing. In 2014, we ran 54 events, worked to get two pioneering open government / open data laws passed - Open Law & City Record Online, booted up an impressive volunteer leadership team, and grew 47% in membership!!!

In 2015, we are setting up ourselves to tackle more challenges! Next year, we are going to focus on sustainability and broadening our impact. First, we are going to spread our hacknights across Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan. Then, we are going to dial in our “Civic Free School” framework, and experiment with workshops and curriculum. On top of that, we are shooting for a monthly BetaTalk thought leaders series!

In 2015, we will face many challenges and work diligently to use the power of technology, data, and design to build civic technology, smart communities, and open government.

If you have a chance to financially support BetaNYC, we need it. Every dollar counts! Don’t forget, with the assistance of Code for America, we are a 501c3! < http://bit.ly/donate2betanyc >

Note, we do have organizational sponsorship packages that help us achieve our mission. Please email and I’ll send you our prospectus.

  # HUGE THANK YOUS!!

Code for America, Blue Ridge Foundation, Microsoft Civic, Dev BootCamp, IBM, Smoretgage, Socrata, Vizalytics, Asher Novek, Benjamin Arancibia, Chris Whong, Emily Goldman, Hayley Richardson, Joe Kerns, Kara Chesal, Lauren Rennee, Lucio Tolentino, Marc Shifflett, Terrance Beckett, Tong Xiang, Volkan Unsal, Yasi Razvan

[betanyc]

The following is a guest post by Stephen Chen and originally appeared on his blog. Stephen is currently a student a The Flatiron School. You can learn more about him here, or follow him on twitter here.

NYC provides a ton of data from a variety of sources to the public to use for...

[betanyc]

#GivingTuesday, Join BetaNYC & march into the future, together.

BetaNYC is New York City’s civic tech and open government community. In past year, we’ve hosted 54 events demystifying open data and government, worked with transportation advocates to improve NYPD’s crash data, we’ve gotten the City Council to adopt 21st century rules, and worked with the Council and the Mayor to put the City’s Laws, Charter, and Record online and in a machine readable format.

Next year, we want to diversity our borough partnerships, build a first in class civic hacker free school, and qualify that open government data improves quality of life AND builds a diverse economy.

Join us as we march into the future, together.

We're looking for 150 people to donate $150 to fund our weekly hacknights. That's $12.50 a month. Please support us at whatever level you can.

http://bit.ly/donate2betanyc

[betanyc]

THE_MESSAGE 2014.47 - Fighting for better data, 311, & your right to party!

-= Community Updates =-

This month, we've gone before City Council to fight for better open data and 311 program. In short, we have one of the best open data programs in the world, but we can be better. This can only be done by sustained gardening. The Council and Agency representatives appreciated our insights and we are already working together to make our ideas reality. Stay tuned!!

 - Open Data Program insights and recommendations 

 - NYC 311 recommendations

Additionally, the City Record Online project is progressing quite smoothly. We've submitted a draft proposal for a City Record API and have outlined draft schemas for public hearings / meetings and procurement. You can check out the rest of this project here.

* NYC's Chief Analytics officer started this week. We are super excited to end the year with an experienced leadership team. Let's throw them some twitter thanks by tweeting the following "I'm so excited for NYC's #OpenData & #CivicTech future w/ CIO @AnneMRoest, CTO @minervatweet, & now CAO @AMashariki!" or you can retweet this message.

* Lastly, we're really excited about our friends at Personal Democracy Media launching Civic Hall! In the coming months, we'll be sharing some of their events and programming on our calendar.

-= Upcoming Events =-

* Dec 3, Hacknight in Brooklyn!

 - http://www.meetup.com/betanyc/events/208022292/

* Dec 8, Geo/Hack/Viz Holiday Happy Hour <- PARTY!!!!! ok, just a happy hour, but you should come.

 - https://www.eventbrite.com/e/geohackviz-holiday-happy-hour-tickets-14195357697 

* Dec 10, Hacknight in Manhattan!

 - http://www.meetup.com/betanyc/events/208809832/

* Dec 17, BetaTalk - Save the Date!!!

 - http://www.meetup.com/betanyc/events/208809702/

-= Fellowships =-

* Data and Society 

- Data and Society is looking for a 2015 fellowship team http://www.datasociety.net/initiatives/fellows-program/

* Flatiron School

 - LEARN TO CODE - Flatiron School is offering a NYC Web Development Fellowship http://flatironschool.com/nycworkforce1/

-= Jobs afoot =-

* CUP is hiring a design team:

- http://welcometocup.org/NewsAndEvents/CUPIsHiringADesigner

* Data and Society is looking to hire a researcher 

 - http://www.datasociety.net/jobs/2014/11/researcher-enabling-connected-learning/

* NYC.gov is hiring Application Systems Administrator

 - http://on.nyc.gov/1F7ue7G

* Interesting positions at NYC DOT

 - Associate Commissioner for Franchises & Street Furniture - http://on.nyc.gov/11GEwO1

 - Public Engagement Specialist - http://on.nyc.gov/14RMMfm

* Listing of NYC.gov IT, Data Analyst, & Design jobs

 - http://on.nyc.gov/1xSilPX