June’s Civic Tech Events

| Matt Stempeck

Summer is finally fast approaching. Join us at these top events in the NYC area this June:

June 3

Civic Imagination: Designing and Building a Better Future

Join Boston Civic Media’s third annual conference for a day of inspiring keynotes, presentations and networking with peers and community leaders around igniting civic creativity. Dive into topics including media literacy, youth-led advocacy, DIY activist technologies, and creative storytelling. We’ll also be announcing the first ever inter-campus curriculum addressing climate change.

Each year, Boston Civic Media convenes its growing network of faculty, students, activists, journalists, policymakers and nonprofits all invested in “civic media,” or media that creates social change through art, design, and technology. Our theme for this year’s conference is Civic Imagination and we have an incredible lineup of presenters to share new strategies, insights and approaches for collectively re-imagining public life in Boston.

Some of our team will be up in Boston for the Civic Media Consortium’s Civic Imagination conference on Saturday, June 3rd. It’s free, and you should join in!

June 6

June 2017 NY Tech Meetup and Afterparty

This month’s NY Tech Meetup will feature a roster of civic tech demos, organized with Civic Hall.

Writing Government Information for People with Cognitive Disabilities

No one likes unclear information about rules and laws – but for people with cognitive disabilities, badly written and formatted information is itself a barrier to accessibility. So, how do you write so that people with cognitive disabilities can read, understand, and use your content? In this presentation, we will look at how simply written and properly formatted content can help improve accessibility for everyone, including people with cognitive disabilities. We will also look at how challenges faced by people with cognitive disabilities in accessing information are caused by bad writing or formatting. Finally, there will be examples of good and bad information about regulations.

June 8-9

Personal Democracy Forum

This conference will bring together top technologists, campaigners, hackers, government officials, journalists, opinion-makers,  and academics for two days of game-changing talks, workshops, and networking opportunities – celebrating the power and potential of tech to make real change happen.

Our entire team will be at Personal Democracy Forum at NYU on June 8th and 9thRegister now!

Come join us at our sessions, including:

  • June 8th, time TBA: Measure globally, act locally: What can data do for neighborhoods?
    The open data movement has matured from national mandates to serving true needs at the neighborhood level. Come discover groundbreaking local projects to help neighborhood groups and community boards leverage data to improve decision-making and create tangible outcomes for residents.
  • June 9th, 2pmA 2016 Bright Spot: Breakthroughs in Voter Information
    Featuring yours truly, plus civic tech superfriends Donny Bridges, Carmen Hicks, and Elana Berkowitz.
  • June 9th, time TBA: Rob Bernard, Chief Environmental Strategist at Microsoft

June 11

Open Data for All Workshop in the Bronx

The City of New York shares more than 1600 datasets with New Yorkers – these datasets hold information about where we all live, work, play and pray. Come learn how to use the NYC Open Data Portal (where this data is available) in a free Open Data for All Workshop at St. Mary’s Recreation Center in the Bronx on Sunday June 11th from 9-3:30pm.

June 12

Tech Trends And Geo: Today And Tomorrow

The theme of this meetup is to look forward, to experience and discuss innovations and trends happening across the technology landscape today, things we’re reading about in tech magazine articles, watching go viral in the business and consumer space, and think about how we can use them to improve the capabilities of our geospatial tools, enhance our geospatial data, do better spatial analysis, manage our data better, make better maps and better decisions in our work.

June 13

LMHQ Women’s Breakfast: Who Run the World? Girls.

Join us at LMHQ for our final women’s breakfast of the season, in partnership with Civic Hall’s #CivicWomen network, on Tuesday, June 13th for a discussion about tools to help more women run for elected positions. We’ll talk about what’s worked, and where there’s room for improvement.

Hear from Marya Stark, CoFounder of Emerge America, the premier training program for Democratic women who want to run for public office with programs in eighteen states, and Alexis Grenell, CoFounder of Pythia Public, a New York-based communications, government and political strategy firm providing strategic planning services to non-profit, political, and corporate clients, in conversation with our own Jessica Lappin, President of the Alliance for Downtown New York and former member of the New York City Council.

Community Transitions: Making A Difference In Military Reintegration

Only approximately half of the 21 million Veterans and their families nationwide are accessing care from the Veterans Administration. Despite over 1 million community and non-profit resources available, even fewer are taking advantage of these opportunities, leading to higher rates of Veteran suicide, homelessness, and seclusion. Changes here can lead to changes in every under-served population. Come hear what makes for a successful reintegration from the military to civilian sectors, courtesy of a panel of local Veterans and military spouses who navigated transition. Find out what is working in the local community, ask your questions, and help like-minded individuals find solutions on how we can do things better for each other.

June 14

Green Infrastructure Grant Program – Summer Workshop

The New York City Department of Environmental Protection offers a grant program for private property owners in combined sewer areas of New York City. The minimum requirement is to manage 1.25″ of stormwater runoff from the contributing impervious area. If selected, DEP will provide funds for the design and construction of the green infrastructure system. Eligible projects include blue roofs, rain gardens, green roofs, porous pavement and rainwater harvesting on private property in combined sewer areas.

June 15-16

Collective Intelligence Conference

CI is the fifth annual interdisciplinary conference dedicated to advancing our understanding of collective intelligence and the workings of groups. The conference will take place at New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering on June 15-16, 2017.

Collective Intelligence 2017 will emphasize research in service of the public good and projects that address societal problems. Together we will explore the impact of Internet technology and big data on the ways in which people come together to communicate and combine knowledge and skills. Coming from myriad disciplines and fields, conference participants share how connecting groups of people, information, and machines can lead to more intelligent behavior and more effective problem solving.

The event brings together researchers from academia, business, non-profit, and government to share insights, ideas, and experiences and to collaborate on the design of better approaches for fostering the use of collective intelligence. This year’s conference will place special emphasis on public interest applications of collective intelligence, namely the role of groups and collective intelligence in governing and in solving societal challenges.

*tickets start at $299*

June 19

Dev Week Conference

Details TBA

June 21

ioby Summer Party

Come celebrate with a community of fellow changemakers – and officially kick off summer in style – at ioby’s Summer Party! We are delighted to recognize the work of our amazing honorees:

Micah Sifry, Executive Director of Civic Hall and Co-Founder of Personal Democracy Media,

Partnerships for Parks, a public and private partnership that supports and champions a growing network of leaders caring and advocating for neighborhood parks and green spaces,

And Indianapolis-based ioby project leader, master gardener, and Program Manager at Urban Patch, Joyce Moore.

June 22

Purpose x Design

Work is work, right? We don’t need to like it – just need to collect that paycheck.

Obviously not! Our careers are meant to be the manifestations of our dreams come true. We commit ourselves, work hard, and dream big – so why do we often struggle to find purpose in our work? Why does the grass always seem to be greener on the other side, even when we’ve made great efforts to get where we are?

In this Designers + Geeks, we’re bring together a distinguished group of speakers to look at the topic of “purpose.” We’ll discuss ways to find meaning in your work, and lessons learned along the way. Our speakers have lived, learned, and worked hard to build great careers – they’ll share how they did it.

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