The Tech Museum of Innovation in downtown San Jose is proud to be the new home for Code for San Jose’s bi-monthly civic hack nights. Code for San Jose, a hacker brigade affiliated with Code for America, was formed in the fall of 2014 to connect the fast and innovative world of technology to local government. This volunteer group worked on projects such as Open Disclosure, in which campaign finance data from the San Jose mayoral election was visualized to show how much money was raised and spent and where the funds came from. Another project, CycleSafe, is an app that allows cyclists to share routes they consider the safest.
The brigade outgrew its original home at NextSpace San Jose and was looking to expand. On National Civic Hacking Day in June, The Tech hosted Hack My Ride in our newspace, the Design Challenge Learning Institute in partnership with Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, Code for San Jose, Microsoft and other community organizations. Although space is typically used to provide professional development for educators, the brigade members of Code for San Jose knew they found their new home.
Code for San Jose welcomes all people who want to use technology to help improve the City of San Jose, regardless of skill level. This aligns with The Tech’s role as a community resource and mission to inspire the innovator in everyone. The new space at The Tech allows the brigade to easily provide orientation to new members, have an IoT (Internet of Things) corner where members can work with Raspberry Pi, and create long-term project groups. Members are also able to start and finish a simple project on the same night, such as visualizing a data set, creating maps for social good, testing a new civic tech tool, contributing information to the San Jose local Wiki or other projects that can be found on Code for San Jose’s github. If you’re interested in joining, check out the meeting schedule on meetup and follow us as @codeforsanjose.
The Tech believes the future belongs to people who understand and use science and technology, and that everyone should have access to the tool necessary to thrive in our technology-driven age. We are happy to host Code for San Jose, an organization bringing these concepts to life within local government.
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Emily Ramos is Creative Collisions Events Coordinator at The Tech Museum of Innovation. She is a technology enthusiast and a proud resident of Silicon Valley. Emily received a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and a 3rd Assistant Engineer License at California Maritime Academy then continued her post-graduate education in Mechanical Engineering at San Jose State. At The Tech Museum of Innovation, she cultivated a social media strategy to spread the Tech’s mission of inspiring the innovator in everyone.
