Roundup of California’s Recent Public Technology Initiatives and Successes

This post is part of a series created by the California Public Technology Roundtable. Read more about the Roundtable, see a list of all participants, and learn more about our first meeting here.

The California Public Technology Roundtable’s recommendations build on a growing body of work by public technologists across the globe. Drawing on veterans from long standing efforts like those of Code for America, 18F, and the U.S. Digital Service, we celebrate the years of work that has gone into building the current public technology infrastructure in California.

The Roundtable participants at work!

The proposal for the Office of Digital Innovation takes inspiration from the growing number of digital service units inside government. Luke Fretwell, who has been intimately involved in the development of Code California, our state government’s open source initiative, recently wrote a nice post on medium providing an overview of digital service teams across the world.

The first ever California Public Technology roundtable on February 9th looked to build on existing momentum such as California’s change in direction on a $500 million IT project for Child Welfare Services and convene key stakeholders to help amplify the impact of the new Office of Digital Innovation.

Here’s a quick rundown of some of the California-based technology initiatives that have helped pave the way for our Roundtable Recommendations, and the Office of Digital Innovation itself:

Here are some efforts that provide context (and hopefully personal and institutional knowledge) that can be amplified by the Office of Digital Innovation to achieve the following goals:

Creating quick public technology wins that build momentum for larger transformation

• Success: story of how the State of California changed direction on a $500 million IT project for Child Welfare Services
• Existing effort: Open and Transparent Water Data Act Implementation

Opening up the marketplace for public technology procurement

• Existing effort: Executive Order on “Requests for Innovative Ideas”
• Existing effort: Startup in Residence Program
• Existing effort: Santa Monica’s Hack the Beach program
• Existing effort: Opportunity to redeploy 18F Micropurchase Marketplace

Attracting and retaining technology talent in the public sector

• Existing effort: Gov Ops’ Eureka Institute
• Existing effort: Southern California School of Data
• Existing effort: City of Los Angeles’ Data Science Federation
• Existing effort: Tech Talent Pipeline in Los Angeles
• Better preparing government employees to deliver modern services in keeping with constituent expectations
• Existing effort: Data and donuts speaker series and training partnership between LA City, LA County and the Southern California Association of Governments.
• Existing effort: Annual water data summit ( https://cawaterdatasummit.org )
• Transforming departments like the DMV so the online user experience exceeds what one expects in the modern consumer web
• Existing effort: Executive Order on DMV Strike Team
• Dream: user story on the DMV that is, and the DMV that should be

Streamlining how data is shared between local municipalities, state agency departments and academic universities

• Existing Effort: City of Los Angeles Data Science Federation empowering collaborations between city departments and university partners.
• Existing Effort: California Water Data Collaborative (pooling and standardizing metered water usage data across local utilities)
• Existing Effort: LA Counts
• Existing Effort: California Policy Lab pooling policing data (UCLA / UC Berkeley)

Standardizing key public data to support better public service delivery

• Existing Effort: Data.CA.gov and other state and local open data portals.
• Existing Effort: Mobility Data Specification for shared scooters.
• Existing Effort: Open Water Rate Specification for the price people pay for water.
• Existing Effort: ShakeAlertLA providing earthquake early warning using USGS data services via open source shortly
• Existing Effort: use of airflow at City of Los Angeles, City of San Diego and ARGO to automate data pipelines and standardization.
• Dream: Standardized parcel level land use data across California

Better collaborating with community based civic technology and data science talent?

• Existing Effort: Annual California Water Data Challenge
• Existing Effort: Code for America brigades like Hack for LA

Encouraging more local municipalities to use open source tools and integrate data into their decision making

• Existing Effort: State Code California initiative empowering open source
• Existing Effort: SB 272 requiring munis to inventory their data systems
• Existing Effort: City of Los Angeles Github, and other municipal open source efforts

Supporting industry scale transformation in how public services are delivered at all levels

• New public benefit govtech companies like CityGrows and CoProcure
• Code for America’s new Community Fellows program

If you’re interested in learning more about future Roundtable events, please complete this form.