Please join Code for Boston for a weekend of unconference discussions and civic hacking at our fourth annual National Day of Civic Hacking event on June 4-5. Taking place over two days, this year’s event will feature a CommonCamp unconference on Saturday, and a technology-focused HackLab on Sunday.

UPDATE: Unfortunately, Nick Skytland from NASA had a last-minute change of plans, and will be unable to join us for this year's event. Instead, we'll be joined by Nicole Neditch, Code for America's Senior Director of Community Engagement, for a keynote talk about the growth of civic technology, and Code for America's current initiatives.





















For Saturday’s CommonCamp, Code for Boston is once again collaborating with MassIT, the IT department for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, on a CityCamp-style unconference event to kick start a dialogue about some of the critical issues that face our Commonwealth, bringing together government employees, technologists, and community members for a series of facilitated sessions in the areas of transportation, environmental & energy concerns, the opioid crisis, youth employment & workforce development, and more. No coding skills are required at CommonCamp.









For Sunday’s HackLab, we’ll invite local technologists to join us for a relaxed day of technological exploration and civic hacking. At HackLab, participants can follow up on ideas from Saturday’s CommonCamp, work on National Day of Civic Hacking challenges from Code for America, hack on open-source projects from government and community organizations, and redeploy Code for Boston apps with new partners. We'll be joined at HackLab by Code for America's Senior Director of Community Engagement, Nicole Neditch, for a keynote discussion on the growth of civic tech, and Code for America's current initiatives, including the National Day of Civic Hacking Challenges.





Participants can register for the events on Saturday, Sunday, or both. We can't wait to see you all for a couple days of collaboration, discussion, and civic hacking!









Should I come to CommonCamp?

Yes! CityCamp events like CommonCamp are all about inclusion, multiple viewpoints, and collaboration – technology skills are not required. At CommonCamp, we’ll be inviting citizens, civic leaders, elected officials, government employees, entrepreneurs, technologists, and more to come together to share perspectives and insights about state and local civic issues, and to create formal problem statements and actionable steps that we can then pursue together after the event.





The goals of CityCamp events are to:

Bring together local government officials, municipal employees, experts, programmers, designers, citizens, and journalists to share perspectives and insights about Massachusetts government

Create and maintain patterns for using the Web to facilitate local government transparency and effective local governance

Foster communities of practice and advocacy on the role of the Web, mobile communication, online information, and open data in cities

Create outcomes that participants will act upon after the event is over





What will we be doing at CommonCamp?

CommonCamp is a civic unconference, which means we’ll be having a series of participant-led conversations, facilitated by Code for Boston and MassIT staff. Our focus will be on the following topic areas:

Environmental / Energy

Opioids

Transportation

Youth Workforce & Employment

Housing

Municipal Operations

Open Data & Government Transparency

If you are interested in leading a session in one of these topic areas, please head over to this form and tell us about it.





All that talking sounds great, but I want to hack!

Awesome! Sunday’s HackLab sounds like it’s the place for you. HackLab will be a great chance to get your code on in an informal and relaxed setting. You’ll be able to see what we’ve been up to at Code for Boston and redeploy some of our code, work with local government partners on some of their open source projects, hack on some national challenges from Code for America, and even start working on problem statements from CommonCamp. And of course, we’d love it if you came for both days of the event!





Schedule

Saturday, June 4: CommonCamp

9:30 - 10:00 - Doors open. Light breakfast will be served.

10:00 - 11:30 - Opening discussion and group ideation session

11:30 - 12:00 - First unConference session

12:00 - 1:00 - Lunch is served!

1:00 - 1:30 - Second unConference session

1:30 - 2:00 - Third unConference session

2:00 - 2:30 - Break, light snack, networking

2:30 - 3:00 - Fourth unConference session

3:00 - 3:30 - Final unConference session

3:30 - 4:00 - Event closing and group outputs

4:00 - 5:00 - Open conversation





Sunday, June 5: CommonCamp

9:30 - 10:00 - Doors open. Light breakfast will be served.

10:00 - 10:30 - Opening discussion and keynote from Nicole Neditch

10:30 - 11:00 - Project pitches

11:00 - 12:00 - Lunch is served!

12:00 - 3:30 - Open hacking

3:30 - 4:30 - Outputs and next steps

4:30 - 5:00 - Event closing





A logistical note…

All CityCamp events, including CommonCamp, are on the record by default. Participants should be made aware that they may be quoted, photographed, videotaped and otherwise recorded. Exceptions must be agreed to by all parties present in a conversation in order for the conversation to be off the record.





I have other questions, ideas, or partnership opportunities for National Day of Civic Hacking!

Awesome! Here's how we can hook up:

If you would like to lead an unconference session at CommonCamp, connect with us using this form.

If you are a government or community group and would like to submit an open-source project for work at HackLab, tell us about it here.

If you are interested in making a financial contribution, donating a meal, or other forms of sponsorship: Contact kristen@codeforboston.org or becky@codeforboston.org

If you have a general question not covered here: Contact hello@codeforboston.org













Our Thanks

National Day of Civic Hacking Boston 2016 would not be possible without support from the following organizations:









And many additional thanks to our facilitation partner, EB Advising:

















About National Day of Civic Hacking

National Day of Civic Hacking is a nationwide day of action where developers, government employees, designers, journalists, data scientists, non-profit employees, UX designers, and residents who care about their communities come together to host civic tech events leveraging their skills to help their community. This annual event provides citizens an opportunity to do what is most quintessentially American: roll up our sleeves, get involved and work together to improve our society.

Read more about National Day of Civic Hacking at Code for America





About Code for Boston

Part of the Code for America Brigade network, Code for Boston is a volunteer group of developers, designers, data geeks, and citizen activists who use creative technology to solve civic and social problems in the Greater Boston area.

Part mission-driven non-profit, part technology meetup, part advocacy group, part social club, we provide a way for citizens to give back to their communities by building civic applications, opening public data sources, and generally helping to leverage technology for use in the public sphere.

Read more about Code for Boston







