Code for San José Newsletter — April 2020 — Responding to COVID-19
Our monthly newsletter is one of the ways we share updates, resources, and opportunities with the wider civic tech community.
👋 Welcome
Hello civic tech friends, we hope you’re all keeping well during these strange and uncertain times.
As a community, Code for San José is deeply saddened by the COVID-19 pandemic. We are incredibly grateful for the healthcare, grocery, warehouse, farm, janitorial and delivery workers, as well as all of the workers who work in essential services to help our communities function during this time.
We all have a part to play in fighting this pandemic. What can we do on a personal level?
- We can practice shelter in place and social distancing. Live in California? Observe the State of California’s stay at home orders. For more information about COVID-19, see the CDC’s website or the Santa Clara County Department of Public Health’s website.
- We can practice acts of service and kindness. Donate funds or supplies to VMC Foundation so they can get Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for healthcare workers in Santa Clara County. Check in with your friend or elder relative by calling them over the phone or through virtual chats.
How can we help local efforts related to COVID-19?
- Sign up to volunteer with assistance and recovery efforts through Silicon Valley Strong. We’re also discussing ways we can potentially collaborate on our Slack channel #silicon-valley-strong. (Haven’t joined us on Slack yet, here is the link to sign up for our Slack)
- We’re exploring ways to work with data, or existing cross-brigade partnerships as a response to COVID-19 in our Slack channel #covid-19-response.
- Looking to volunteer on a project immediately? Code for America is working with FEMA to provide information on the availability of free or reduced-priced meals to families around the country and need volunteers who can input school district information for this map. Contact brigade-info@codeforamerica.org to get in the loop.
- Have a project and want to get started? Take a few minutes to read this piece from OpenOakland’s Jess Sand on what to consider when leading tech projects for disaster response.
Need financial help?
Check out resources from State of California, Relief Funds For Undocumented Workers in California (source; Legal Aid at Work), interest list for low-income residents in Santa Clara County impacted by COVID-19.
🎉 Code for San José Updates
- Out of an abundance of caution for the novel COVID-19 pandemic, Code for America made the difficult decision to cancel this year’s Code for America Summit that was scheduled to take place on March 11–13 in Washington DC. Some talks may be recorded, and accessible via Code for America’s YouTube.
- We also cancelled the Open Data Day event, where we were planning to partner with Code for San Francisco and Open Oakland brigades.
- We will be following the shelter in place established by the State of California. Until further notice, our bi-weekly civic hack nights will be held online.
Here are a couple of updates from late February and early March, before the crisis had escalated in our area:
- On February 26th, San José State University’s Cesar Chavez Community Action Center hosted Code for San José members Yan-Yin Choy, Anathea Lolen, Cesar Arellano, Julie Kim and Sunny Mui for a panel on the intersection of social justice, empathy and STEM careers. It was great to connect with the next generation of college students.
- At our March 5th civic hack night, our nonprofit partner Alex Shoor, executive director of Catalyze SV, and Catalyze SV Map developer Sunny Mui presented the completed Project Map Tracker. Our volunteers Sunny Mui, Lena Tran and Joseph Richardson collaborated with Catalyze SV to make this map.
📈 Project Updates
Census 2020 team worked on making the site more performant, mobile-friendly and accessible. Currently adding the email feature. “With the closure of public spaces due to COVID-19, we needed to pivot from a design intended to attract attention in a physical space, to one optimized for discovery in a virtual one.” Kate Valdes and Anathea Lolen wrote a blog about the San José Census project. Read more. Links: Live website — view it here, GitHub, and Slack channel: #census2020
Disaster Response is a live project with more features to come. One thing they’ve been discussing recently are the next steps for UI and how they might reduce the amount of text. Open to new volunteers. Links: GitHub, Slack channel #disaster-response-sj
Meal Tally may expand to be used by schools and public agencies throughout Santa Clara County. Open to new volunteers with web security, DevOps, front end and backend experience. Links: GitHub and Slack channel #sj-public-library
Heart of the Valley team is continuing to work on the new layout and UI for search feature. Open to new volunteers. Links: View the map of public art, GitHub, and Slack channel #heart-of-the-valley
Open Disclosure team is setting up a database and have decided to use MySQL. They’re also doing some user testing of the design via Slack as a replacement for going out and talking to people, since that’s not feasible right now. Open to new volunteers with backend, MySQL, server, database experience. Links: GitHub | Slack channel #open-disclosure
SCC Probation is on research mode. We’re looking for a point of contact with the Santa Clara County Dept of Probation. May be open to new volunteers. Links: Slack channel #scc-probation
OpenStreetMap has recently exchanged notes on mapping building levels and lanes. Open to new volunteers who are interested in learning how to use mapping tools to add building data. Links: Slack channel #osm
VITA Tax help with Code for America partnered together to address the difficulty of filing correctly to get the maximum benefit for Americans, https://www.getyourrefund.org/. Link: #cfa-vita-folks to find the pinned document with latest ways to contribute.
COVID-19-Response team is looking into stakeholder research, understanding user needs, researching availability of data/API and potential cross-brigade partnership(s) related to COVID-19 response. Link to slack channel #covid-19-response
Silicon Valley Strong is exploring how we can support the Mayor’s Office with their initiative to help vulnerable communities affected by COVID-19. Link to slack #Silicon-Valley-Strong
Renters Rights is exploring further user testing for potential tools to help triage questions from tenants. Links: Slack channel #renters_rights
Code for San José website team is working on coding different UI features. The redesign project can be accessed on GitHub on the 2020_redesign branch. Links: GitHub, codeforsanjose.com, and Slack channel #cfsj-website
🐰 That’s all, folks!
If you’re hungry for more, here’s how you can find out what Code for San José is working on and get involved:
We will meet virtually for our two upcoming civic hack nights on April 2 and April 16.
To get in touch with us, email us at codeforsanjose@gmail.com, or find us on Slack (@Yan-Yin Choy, @Annie Steenson, @Joseph Richardson. If you haven’t joined our Slack yet, go here.)
If there’s someone from your organization who’s not getting these updates, but should be, send them this link to subscribe to our newsletter.
Take care,
Team Code for San José
Annie Steenson, Co-Captain
Cesar Arellano, Leadership Team Member
Dane Olsen, Leadership Team Member
Diane Labenz, Leadership Team Member
Emily Ramos, Advisory Board Member
Erika Hudiono, Leadership Team Member
Joseph Richardson, Co-Captain
Lena Tran, Leadership Team Member
Lorin Camargo, Advisory Board Member
Namrata Challa, Advisory Board Member
Michelle Thong, Advisory Board Member
Minh Nguyen, Leadership Team Member
Yan-Yin Choy, Co-Captain
