The Census is Broken

Greetings Civic Hackers!

I am back from Vancouver and excited to share my latest updates and links with all of you. When I was there I was most excited to see Code for America receive a $100 million grant from The Audacious Project to unlock $30 billion in benefits for families in 15 states. There is also a good write-up from The Atlantic about the effort. I am excited to see this effort grow and the impact it will have. In the coming weeks TED will be posting CEO Amanda Renteria’s talk about this effort, and I will share it here.

What we’re reading and watching:

• Elon Musk talks Twitter, Tesla, and how his brain works has been the talk of the twitter over the past week. Lots of questions remain on what it means for the future of it as the public town square.
• Spreadsheets are Hot - and Cranking Out Complex Code is Clive Thomson’s exploration of the next generation of spreadsheet start-ups.
• The Census is Broken, Can AI Fix It? explores how the US can use AI and satellites to improve the accuracy of the census.
• The 2020 Census Suggests That People Live Underwater explores the issues with the Census use of differential privacy in the 2020 census.

On the move:

• Congratulations to Cyd Harrell on her appointment to lead San Francisco’s Digital Services.

Jobs

MAPC: Digital Services Manager

The Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC) seeks a Digital Services Manager to lead the creation of online data tools, digital applications, and digital equity plans to support effective, efficient, and equitable governance in Metro Boston. This role supervises a team of web developers and civic technologists working in a public agency with planners, data analysts, designers, and community engagement specialists. Our web applications generally seek to collect, explain, or display data in ways that can help municipalities and stakeholders make more informed decisions; and those applications cover a wide range of topic areas such as housing, transportation, climate resiliency, and municipal operations.

MAPC: Civic Technologist

The Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC) seeks a Civic Technologist to lead the agency’s efforts on digital equity and municipal technology practices. This work includes digital access planning with municipalities and community partners; procurement and implementation of local broadband infrastructure improvements; and coordination of efforts to expand digital literacy and access to technology, especially in low-income communities and communities of color. With the anticipated infusion of federal and state infrastructure funds, there is an imminent opportunity to rapidly scale up MAPC’s digital access work, and the Civic Technologist will have a leading role in shaping that evolution. Other activities include technical assistance, coordination, and joint procurement related to how municipalities purchase and use digital tools.

Project Updates

Mattapan Mapping

• Convert tools into react this week.

  Police Data Trust

• In process of doing discovery, finishing it up.
• Doing bug stomping.
• Getting clarity on what next phase will look like.
• Just launched their website!