California Public Technology Roundtable: Code for America Summit Edition and Report-back
It was great to convene an incredible group of California civic tech leaders during the recent Code for America Summit in Oakland. Thank you to everyone who participated in the event!
The Roundtable is a voluntary convening of civic and government technology leaders in California, coming together with the initial goal of supporting each other — and enhancing Governor Newsom’s public sector technology and innovation initiatives and the about-to-launch Office of Digital Innovation.
The 2019 Code for America Summit was a natural place to convene our second meeting. After meeting for the first time in southern California, it was a great opportunity to involve more community members from the Bay Area and Sacramento, as well as to include more private sector leaders in the conversation.
The group that convened during one of the lunchtime breaks at the Summit included:
- Local, county and state government staff
- Private sector consultants and technology vendors
- Representatives from aligned initiatives such as the Agile Government Leadership program
- Pepperdine University’s School of Public Policy
- Code for America staff and brigade members
- Water data experts
Our discussion centered on:
Whether there was sufficient community interest to continue the conversation — that was a definite yes! Our next in-person meeting with be during the 4th Annual California Water Data Summit, August 22–23 in Davis. We’ll plan to meet on Friday August 23rd, details coming soon. We’ve also started a google group — please request access if you’d like to join.
What our next steps should be —we centered on supporting each other — and the state level initiatives by helping to recommend great potential staff members for the recently announced Director role at the Office of Digital Innovation and future staff postings as they’re announced. It’s likely the new agency will be hiring as many as 50 positions — pulling from the best of CA’s private and public sector technology work force to create this new team. We also decided it was worth it to continue convening as we determine what (beyond supporting great new hires) will be the most helpful to the new ODI team.
Process for adding to this Medium publication — we’re committed to a relatively open review/ editorial process that encourages people to create content in support of the ODI and on other relevant topics to this cross-sectoral group. Please write something and connect with us on the google group to suggest or submit something to the publication!!
Thanks to everyone who’s participated so far — we’re excited to continue the conversation.
