Tag: civic tech
-
Community WiFi is Already Here, Now It’s Time to Expand It
This article was originally published on Gotham Gazette on September 13, 2019 While politicians and industry focus on 5G wireless, the democratization of more common wireless technology has quietly made community-run wifi networks faster, better and cheaper than cable. Look for wifi anywhere in New York City and you’ll likely find dozens of locked networks, each of…
-
Madrid Demonstrates Successful Civic Engagement. Let’s Pay Attention as We Launch New York City Commission
This article was originally published on Gotham Gazette on March 24, 2019 Madrid turns its residents’ collective passions and intelligence into tangible improvements to city life. New York should do the same. New Yorkers had until February 22 to apply to join the Civic Engagement Commission (CEC), a new entity that city voters approved last election to manage civic…
-
Expanding Consul presented at MediaLab Prado, Madrid, Spain on November 15th, 2018
COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE FOR DEMOCRACY 2018 was a program of the MediaLab Prado in Madrid, Spain, funded by the Madrid City Government. I was lucky enough to be invited to participate in the two week program where I worked with a team to improve the Consul Participatory Democracy software platform. It was an extremely significant experience…
-
Mixing Tool Sets from Madrid and Taiwan to Improve Participatory Budgeting in New York presented at the g0v Summit 2018 in Taipei, Taiwan
“Mixing Tool Sets from Madrid and Taiwan to Improve Participatory Budgeting in New York: Leveraging Participatory Budgeting to Create a More Open and Participatory Government” was presented at the g0v (pronounced “gov zero”) Summit 2018 on October 6th, 2018 in Taipei, Taiwan. It was an ambitious presentation attempting to align the participatory democracy movements in…
-
Taiwan’s Radical Participatory Democracy Training is Coming to New York
This article originally appeared in Gotham Gazette on June 5th, 2018 Many people are wondering whether rapid advances in communication technology will improve or degrade American democracy. Last decade, the answer seemed to be: improved! Wikipedia’s growth showed us the unimaginable “wisdom of the crowd,” WordPress made it possible for the world’s smartest people to…
-
For Government, It’s DSO or Die
This piece was originally published on Gotham Gazette on March 28, 2018 Private sector innovations in information technologies are transforming virtually every industry, and the rate of change seems to be accelerating. A decade ago, Facebook was a website used almost exclusively by college students to keep in touch with each other; today it’s one of the…
-
Debrief: My 2017 Campaign for NYC Public Advocate
Every vote has been counted, and 74% of NYC voters want Democrat Letitia James to continue as Public Advocate. I congratulated her on her success and will happily work with her to make NYC’s government more open, transparent and participatory. I hope she’ll take me up on my offer. Those experienced in third-party NYC politics…
-
Imagining SimNYCity
I was eight years old when I first encountered a computer game called “SimCity.” The general premise of the game was that you were the mayor of a virtual city, and you would use game money to create a place for communities of “Sims” to live. First you set up basic infrastructure like roads, pipes,…
-
Cities Can Prepare for Trump by Establishing Digital Service Organizations and Mobilizing Civic Tech Communities
Originally posted at municipalist.org Within a few weeks of Trump’s victory, mayors of big “sanctuary cities” throughout America, including New York, Chicago and Los Angeles declared that they wouldn’t collaborate with a Trump administration order to deport peaceful, law-abiding resident. Trump is now threatening that he will deny these cities federal funding unless they comply. The amount…