Code for Miami acquires Code for FTL meetup: The largest civic tech network in South Florida
January 13, 2019
TL;DR; “Don’t worry, no major location or scheduling changes will result from this merger, you can still find your local brigade schedule (FTL/MIA) on meetup.com. Fundraising, applying for grants, and partnering with community organizations and other groups will be more easily formalized with this new collaboration.”
Miami-Dade County and Broward County have the two most populous counties in the Sunshine State. It’s time they got a civic tech community they deserve.
Since 2013, Code for Miami, comprised of concerned citizens, designers, programmers, and organizers in the greater Miami area, started as a simple meetup group that lovingly exemplified the term “civic hackers.” In 2015, we incorporated into a non-profit. Since then the organization has had 6 leaders serve as captains. Through the leadership of our two current captains, Livio A. Zanardo and Gregory Johnson, we are shepherding a new approach to what we believe can drive better local government and use of technology by non-profit organizations.
Today, we are excited to announce we’re joining forces (and fiscally sponsoring) our neighbors to the north, the Code for Fort Lauderdale meetup under the Code for Miami, Inc umbrella. This more formalized financial backing marks the first cross-chapter effort in the state of Florida centered around using a volunteer-driven approach to address civic issues with technology. We will be expanding our leadership adding Code for Fort Lauderdale’s current Captains to the leadership team.
Why is this important?
Driving better government means recognizing we cannot work in silos to improve the communities in which we live. Code for Fort Lauderdale and Code for Miami started because of Code for America’s Brigade Network, a national alliance of community organizers, developers, and designers that are putting technology to work in service of our local communities. We’ve been working in parallel and we’ve noticed we do similar work yet isolated to regional differences; i.e. County or City specific.
While we have had great success through our free events, community workshops, and building technology platforms to improve Civic Engagement, we need wider awareness and adoption. With Miami and Fort Lauderdale’s merge, as well as the continuous support from our talented members, we are now in an environment where we can further encourage this growing community. The two counties are dynamic and nuanced, as so, we believe our combined efforts as South Florida’s largest civic technology group will provide the attention the South Florida community deserves.
What does this “actually” mean?
Code for Miami, Inc. will be taking on fiscal and legal responsibilities for Code for Fort Lauderdale. Their leaders will report to the Code for Miami leadership in a formal partnership that will help us coordinate efforts. Code for Miami, Inc. is not changing business names. Code for Fort Lauderdale will maintain its organization name, but operate as our Broward initiative.
What’s next for the largest Civic Technology group in South Florida?
As a way to better combine efforts, we’re creating two tracks that are open for submission; sponsored projects and non-sponsored projects. We will be focusing on specific target areas rather than a wide set of projects as we’ve done in the past. We are bridging a relationship with our local government to be a vehicle of innovation rather than an independent, loosely affiliated group. If you’d like to support our efforts, donate what you can and we’ll add your name to a great big thank you page.
What does our leadership look like?
- Gregory Johnson, Program Leader and Microsoft Advocate
Gregory Johnson is a Technical Program Manager and IT Professional who will be acting as Interim Director and Developer Advocate leading out managerial and brigade operations while advocating for Azure. His objective will be to shape a model for Code for Miami Inc. to be sustainable for the FY2020 year will driving partnership projects with our local government, non-profit and education institutional partners.
Gregory started off as a volunteer at Code for Miami Inc. in 2014 and moved his way up through flagship partnership projects around issues in Affordable Housing, Open Budgeting, Civic User Testing, and more. He was recommended to lead Code for Miami in 2019 by former captains Julie Kramer and Danielle Ungerman. The 3 founders of Code for Miami Inc. praised him for his leadership. He has a history of working between public, private, and non-profit organizations in the community.
Professionally he works at Microsoft in Civic Innovation and Technology. He will be championing the organization together with Livio Zarnardo.
- Livio Zarnardo, Project Leader for Miami Operations
Livio Zarnardo is a Web Developer and Project Manager who founded DoAsRomans. He was elected as a co-director in 2019 during a new leadership search and was recommended by Julie Kramer in 2019. Livio Zarnardo earned his Bachelor of Arts in International Relations at Florida International University from the Honors College. In 2017 he graduated from Wyncode Developer Bootcamp.
Professionally, Livio is a Freelance Technologist and works under his brand DoAsRomans to maximize individual human expression through technology. Voluntarily, at Code for Miami Inc. Livio is a co-director who champions project leadership and member relations. His 2020 objective will be to build educational content around Civic Technology while empowering contributors to get started on projects and spreading the Code For Miami mission to the public.
- Rob Davis, Community Organizer for FTL Operations
Rob Davis is a Marketing and Community Professional who will be leading Community Organizing and Relations at Code for Miami Inc. Rob co-founded Code For Fort Lauderdale meetup and will continue to lead community efforts in the Broward Area. Rob graduated with a Bachelors in Marketing at Nova Southeastern University. He is passionate about community and creating change with or without technology.
Professionally he works at Weird Enough Productions as a Communications Manager. Voluntarily, he will be leading Community Organizing and Relations at Code for Miami Inc.
- Ryan Gates, Site Reliability Engineer for FTL Operations
Ryan Gates is a Software Engineer and technology professional based in Fort Lauderdale. He co-founded Code For Fort Lauderdale meetup and will continue to be a Software Leader on behalf of the Code for Miami Inc. He graduated with a degree in Computer Science from the University of Central Florida.
Professionally he works at Ultimate Software as a Site Reliability Engineer. Voluntarily, he will be leading specific software projects for Fort Lauderdale as a contributor or leader.
What should it look like?
We recognize that a group of four men, while unique with experience, should not be the only ones at the decision table. We ask that you share this document as we conduct our own initiatives to broaden the leadership team and create a more representative sample of the communities in which we serve. Come meet us at a local civic hack night, discuss the issues you experience and how government, the community as a network, or technology could play a role in helping you.
You can also join us at a create-a-thon event in support of the 2020 Census being held on Feb. 1 at General Provision in Fort Lauderdale.
About Code for Miami, Inc
We are a 501(c)(3) organization that is now the largest civic technology organization in South Florida. We believe government can work for the people, by the people in the digital age. We use a practice-based model and volunteer-network to organize paid projects that are done using Open Data. We support open-source and making data accessible to the public. We use data, design, and technology to demonstrate how technology can improve the lives of residents across Miami-Dade and Broward County.
