ProgCode’s Spring 2018 Call To Action
7 Projects That Are Pushing Through Crisis to Achieve Progress
Our community has grown this year, and so has our projects list. Progressive Coders Network is recruiting mission-aligned tech volunteers and organizing Zoom calls to host planning and development strategy sessions. Check out these revolutionary projects, and join us in Slack if you’re ready to make history by changing the future.
1. Yes on I-1600: Washington State’s Universal Healthcare Initiative
Whole Washington, an ambitious grassroots group of citizens and healthcare professionals, launched a universal healthcare ballot initiative in January 2017. A week after UMass Amherst Economist, Gerald Friedman, Ph.D., completed an historic funding study demonstrating that Washingtonians will save billions of dollars annually by passing universal healthcare, the Secretary of State assigned the universal healthcare item Initiative #1600 on the legislative agenda. Organizers are hosting a series of events with Dr. Friedman while raising funds and collecting the requisite 300,000 signatures to qualify for the November 2018 ballot.
Progressive Coders Network volunteer developer, Marc Glasser, leads a team of tech volunteers who recently completed a Healthcare Savings Estimator to help Washington residents understand how tax costs funding the bill are offset by greater savings on insurance premiums, deductibles and co-pays. This tool is integral in empowering the Yes On I-1600 campaign to achieve its 2018 signature and fundraising goals.
Next week, ProgCode will host a project planning session to discuss current WordPress web development and NationBuilder CRM integration pain points, and devise a plan to automate organizers’ reporting requirements. Please join the conversation in Slack if you’d like to help Washington be the first state to pass Universal Healthcare in 2018!
For just $10/mo., gain exclusive access to Dr. Friedman’s March 4th webinar presentation about state level universal healthcare initiatives and other Democratizing Democracy presentations by becoming a ProgCode Patron.
2. Carpool Vote
CarpoolVote.com USA is an enormously popular, open source voter access tool which matches volunteer drivers to voters in need of a ride to obtain voter I.D., register to vote or get a lift to the polls on Election Day. UX feedback gained during 2017 elections is driving Map, Database & Operator Interface upgrades designed to lighten the load on organizers during busy registration and voting periods.
London-based Jon Kelly (Tech Lead) and Sasjkia Otto (Project Manager) join Virginia NAACP Voter Outreach Coordinator, Andrea Miller, to develop strategies to address project pain points and recruiting needs. Interested developers can check out Carpool Vote’s incredibly accessible GitHub open source repo before joining us in Slack to attend the project planning call this Sunday, March 18, 2018, at 12pm PDT | 3pm EDT | 7pm GMT.
3. Revolution-In-A-Box
Just in time for 2018 grassroots campaigns, Tech Lead Oren Robinson is joined by dozens of eager volunteer developers and project managers stepping up to implement Revolution-In-A-Box: a white-label open source campaign toolkit utilizing existing OS tools created by ProgCode volunteer developers. Tools for inclusion are open source P2P dialers, P2P SMS tools, an interactive map, events calendars and even a digital click-to-postal mail app. Check out the planning document and join us in Slack to determine the best time for next week’s strategy session!
4. Mr. Clean: A Conflict of Interest Detection Algorithm
The impromptu project pitch by Carlos Granados was a highlight of ProgCode’s March 4th Democratizing Democracy virtual conference! Carlos stunned the crowd with models of his conflict of interest detection algorithm project aptly dubbed, Mr. Clean.
Mr. Clean is a ground breaking tool that tackles political corruption head on by making transparent and available vast amounts of data available about politicians, cabinet members, companies, Super PACs, lobbyists, consultants, staff, donors, donations, company executives, investors, and more. Mr. Clean reveals political corruption by cross-referencing the legislation politicians pass with donors, public statements, personal and professional relationships — all in a series of data models that digest the data to return a corruption score and other interesting metrics. Check out the Project Document, and join us in Slack to participate in next week’s brainstorming session!
Want to support more exciting efforts like this? Consider becoming a ProgCode Patron.
5. Maps For Change: A “Hyper Extensible Mappy Thing”
ProgCode has a thing for maps, and we’re always finding new uses for them. Project Manager Joe Breslin and Tech Lead Arash Aghevli are recruiting PHP devs to integrate Resistance Calendar events with Maps For Change on the back end. This is a project with a very broad vision, literally connecting time and space! Check out the pitch deck and if you’d like to help, please join the discussion in Slack and plan to attend next week’s planning call. This could be the 2018/2020 high impact project you’ve been waiting for!
6. Magnify Progress
Malous Kossarian is Tech Lead and Project Manager on Magnify Progress, a social platform for organizations and activists to motivate everyday people to connect with each other and take progressive action. The app lets users subscribe to issues they care about, and then gives them a personalized feed of actions they can take to have the highest impact. For example, if someone follows Net Neutrality, they will get an update and call to action when a new internet bill is introduced by their representative. The app also encourages users to tag their friends to take action to achieve broader impact within their social networks. Users who take action — or get their friends to act — will grow their Total Impact Score. The Magnify Progress beta app is currently available on iOS and Android.
Malous says first priority is finding UI/UX volunteers skilled in making apps fun for users. She’s also looking for a front end volunteer experienced in React Native to implement some of those changes.
7. ProgBot: An Anonymized Member Skills & Project Directory
ProgBot allows ProgCode Slack members to search and connect members seeking projects and projects seeking volunteer contributors with a simple /searchuser [react] or /searchproject [healthcare] command. ProgBot will help increase community engagement and project success through relationship-building, while maintaining cultural values of member/project autonomy and will ultimately enable ProgCode to scale and achieve its mission.
Tech Lead Robert Diamond envisions ProgBot will ultimately look like LinkedIn for ProgCode tech activists, as new features and functionality are rolled out over the next 1–3 years. Joining Robert are Project Manager Violet Olds and Front End developer Jordana Riley. The team is recruiting additional tech volunteers with experience in Ruby, HTML, CSS, React.js and Angular.js. Check out the project repo and join the Zoom planning call this Sunday, March 18, 2018, at 2pm PST |5pm EST | 9pm GMT.
We send out a Call To Action only once in a while, but there’s a whole lot more going on in the ProgCode Slack every day. Stop in to check Team Announcements for regular updates.
Thanks to everyone for being a part of the magic that happens in the ProgCode community! If you’d like to support more impressive projects like these, become a ProgCode Patron.
In Solidarity,
The ProgCode Staff
Progressive Coders Network is a 501(c)(4) non-profit social good organization. Donations made to Progressive Coders Network are not tax deductible.
