March Newsletter | What do vaccines have to do with open data?
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We send a monthly update on what our team is up to, share our latest blog posts, and offer curated must-reads about civic tech. If we’re hosting an Open House, a Summit or Showcase, you’ll be the first to know.
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Welcome to our March newsletter! 💉
Like pretty much everybody right now, we’ve been thinking about vaccines.
More than perhaps any other moment in the pandemic, the challenge of getting vaccines into arms really feels like a civic tech challenge.
After all, vaccines are about public sector service design. How can we balance the complex tensions between what’s possible and what residents expect, and between urgency and privacy or accessibility?
Vaccines are also about procurement. How might we collaborate across sectors to build tools to manage vaccine rollout? And how can we best avoid paying millions for vaccine portals that don’t work (and no, the solution is not a $50 website)?
And vaccine distribution is also about open source code. How might align on a single, open and easy-to-adapt platform, instead of rebuilding the same basic technical tools in each jurisdiction?
The beginning of the pandemic sparked real momentum in digital government; the stellar rollout of the Canada Emergency Response Benefit, collaboration on assessment tools, and the COVID Alert app were all high-profile examples of what happens when we invest in and empower digital teams.
The lessons we found at the start of the pandemic are just as vital now that the end is (hopefully) in sight. So let’s keep that momentum going.
You’re Invited to our Open House 🏠
Join us Thursday, March 11 at 12:00 p.m. EDT to chat with the Code for Canada staff, learn about our work and connect with others passionate about civic technology.
We’ll be featuring the MOVE team from the City of Toronto. What began as a Code for Canada fellowship in 2018 has led to a generational upgrade of the city’s traffic data systems. The MOVE team also helped build a strong digital culture within the Toronto Transportation Services.
Voices from the team 📣
🚢 When your job description changes from scaling tankers to building buy-in with stakeholders, it can be a difficult transition. Heshan Modaragamage, fellow at the Canadian Armed Forces Transition Group (CAF TG), shares his experience returning to civilian life and how his team is helping others do the same.
🚋 Maddy Ewins, product manager on the MOVE team, demonstrates some important features of the platform. MOVE is a key part of Toronto’s Vision Zero plan to reduce traffic-related injuries.
🏛️ Shine Chaudhuri, UX designer on the MOVE team, reflects on how Toronto Transportation Services “[became] a startup in the public space.” Read more for his advice for aspiring civic technologists.
🏗️ Working in the open helps build trust, improve collaboration, and break down silos. But what’s the best way to do it in government? Gillian Wu, fellow at the Canada Energy Regulator (CER), explains her team’s approach to communicating in the open.
📝 Thinking about how you can integrate more UX design processes into virtual teams? Gillian shares seven lessons she learned from facilitating a remote workshop.
🚀 Fellows embedded with Employment and Social Development Canada are running a speculative design sprint to address the challenges and opportunities of the future. Check out their blog for a sprint overview from mapping to storyboarding.
Best practices in digital government
🏡 It takes a village to deliver great digital government services. The Colorado Digital Service explains how their “tour of service” model can improve the citizen experience with government services.
🧰 “The strong foundation we built through our operational practices allowed us to do our work and deliver [in a] time of need.” The San Francisco Digital Services shares operational best practices that supported their work during the pandemic.
🤔 “Your services should be good enough that people want to use them, even when they don’t have to.” Sean Boots makes the case for building better enterprise software solutions — by making them optional.
The Code for Canada spotlight ☀️
Anne-Marie Mulumba is a design researcher at the Canada Digital Service
“Research operations works behind the scenes to help researchers do the forward facing research to talk to people, understand their needs, and learn how to best serve them.”
Anne-Marie is a design researcher with the Canadian Digital Service. She’s worked on projects to make government more accessible to those they serve.
Her team laid the groundwork to set up research operations at the CDS. In this blog post, she reflects on how her role evolved and shares early milestones the project has achieved.
➡️ Follow Anne-Marie on Twitter
Do you know a digital government champion or civic technologist who deserves the spotlight? Let us know, and we might feature them in our newsletter.
Civic tech in conversation 💬
🔓 Interested in contributing to an open source project but not sure where to start? In this Twitter thread, Simon Høiberg explains the process and shares best practices.
📈 Check out this Twitter thread, started by Nick Scott from Canada’s Digital Academy, where public servants share tips, strategies and tactics for scaling innovation.
👿 Want to offend a civic technologist? Tom Dooner from Code for America sparked a lighthearted thread on how to do just that.
Civic tech job alerts 💼
The Government of Canada is hiring digital experts for multiple positions. Note: applications are not for a specific position, but to an inventory for future vacancies.
Do you love strategic communications and inclusive work? Join the Canadian Digital Service as an Internal Communications Advisor. Is tech more your specialty? The CDS is also hiring for a Senior/Principle Software Developer and a Senior Front-End Software Developer.
On the west coast, the BC Digital Investment Office is looking for their next Director. This is a great opportunity to work at the intersection of digital and investment.
BC Government Digital Experience is also looking for a UX Digital Content Strategist/Writer. Apply your digital content design skills to support ministries in public engagements and citizen facing websites.
Let us know what you think 💡
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We’re Code for Canada, a national non-profit working to build digital capacity in government and civic capacity in Canada’s technology and design community. In other words, we help people use tech and design for good!
If you’d like to learn more about our organization, our people or our programs, visit our website, check out our blog, or reach out to hello@codefor.ca.
