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The latest news from Code for Canada, and updates on the country's growing civic tech movement.
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Introducing Civic Hall Toronto
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Civic Hall Toronto Program Manager Shea Sinnott addresses the crowd at our launch event on May 20, 2018.
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Code for Canada has teamed up with the City of Toronto and the Centre for Social Innovation to launch Civic Hall Toronto, an ambitious program that aims to level up collaboration in Canada’s largest city.
Inspired by successful, cross-sector collaboration programs like Civic Hall in New York and Superpublic in Paris, Civic Hall Toronto provides networking opportunities, training and custom project support to anyone building civic solutions in the Greater Toronto Area. Our membership include teams from the City of Toronto, the City of Markham and the Province of Ontario, and we’re designing programming for civic tech community members and civic entrepreneurs.
If you’re based in the GTA, and are excited about using technology and design for the common good, then you’ll find a home at Civic Hall Toronto.
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A ‘three-layer cake’ of government at Ottawa Civic Tech
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Click the image above to watch Ottawa Civic Tech's panel discussion on 21st century public service design.
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On Tuesday, Ottawa Civic Tech organized a panel discussion on government service design in the digital age, featuring representatives from the Canadian Digital Service, the Ontario Digital Service and the City of Ottawa.
It was inspiring to see all three levels of government come together and share insights, lessons and strategies related to 21st century service delivery. The discussion was also a powerful reminder that government is home to many people striving to do things differently, and that digital transformation is as much -- or more -- about empowering those change agents as it is about adopting new technology.
Congratulations to the team at Ottawa Civic Tech -- including Code for Canada board member James Chan -- for hosting such an awesome and timely event!
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Taiwan's Civic Tech Prototype Grant
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Civic hackers in Taiwan work on the Cofacts Line Bot, a tool that helps identify "fake news" reports on social media.
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Taiwan is a world leader in civic tech and digital democracy, but their civic tech projects -- like ones here in Canada -- are often still grassroots and volunteer-led. To help incubate, accelerate and scale civic tech projects, Taiwan’s g0v started a Civic Tech Prototype Grant last year.
To date, the group has provided funding and support to 13 teams, including one building affordable agricultural and weather sensors for local farmers, a project mapping the country’s corporate sources of air pollution, and a crowdsourced effort to digitize important national artifacts (which is of particular significance given that some of Taiwan’s most important artifacts and archives are located overseas).
In a new report, g0v tracks the outcomes of the grant, showing how a small amount of resources can unlock the potential of grassroots civic tech work, enabling volunteers to clear early hurdles, demonstrate what’s possible, and get to impact faster.
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Attend Code for Canada's next Open House
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Code for Canada's Executive Director, Gabe Sawhney presents at one of our Open House events.
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Some light civic tech reading
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- Co.Design’s new Government Fix Series, led by Sara Hudson and Hana Schank, is a deft exploration of the state of digital transformation in government. With provocative titles like “Everything you know about innovation is wrong” and “The enduring mythology of the whiz kid,” Hudson and Schank highlight the need for government to catch up to residents’ new expectations of customer service and technology, and they question some of our assumptions about what innovation looks like in the public sector.
- If you’re curious about what success looks like for a civic tech startup, check out the Connecticut Post’s profile of SeeClickFix. Now in its 10th year, the company is helping residents connect with their local governments in hundreds of U.S. cities.
- In February, Ontario launched a new beta version of its Environmental Registry, a portal that enables residents to take part in government decision-making that could affect the environment. In a new blog post, product manager Spencer Daniels describes how the team brought an agile approach to the project, and offers tips for other government innovators looking to do the same. It’s a great case study in digital government, and another example of the Ontario Digital Service working in the open!
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GET INVOLVED
How you can help
We're working hard to ensure governments across our great country keep pace with technology and deliver the best services possible for their residents. But we can't do it alone. Here's how you can lend a hand.
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1. Help spread the word! Follow Code for Canada on social media, and share our efforts to grow the civic tech movement!
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2. Share your stories! Are you a government innovator or civic tech practitioner with a success story to tell? Let us know, and we can share it with our audience of engaged residents, public servants, community advocates and technologists! You can get in touch at hello@codefor.ca!
3. Join your local civic tech group! You can find the one nearest you on our website. If there’s not one near you, Code for Canada’s Civic Tech Toolkit can help you start one!
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Thank you to our partners!
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