Editor’s note – We’re experimenting with the creation of a monthly or weekly newsletter. Give us feedback on our Facebook group.
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Here’s all the news fit to scan!
#. VIDEO – BetaTalk – The future of NY State’s Open Government
#. At this week’s hacknight, we’re evolving the format.
#. This week’s #CivicFreeSchool classes and projects.
#. Our first diversity & desires report needs your comments!
#. NYC’s Open Data Resources Spreadsheet
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#. VIDEO – BetaTalk – The future of NY State’s Open Government
Last wed, we were quite fortunate to have Reinvent Albany talk about their work and the future of open government in Albany! Here’s the video if you missed it and a related TechPresident article.
* Related Article – http://bit.ly/1qcWv8F
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#. EVOLUTION OF HACKNIGHTS
We’ll keep the “formal” part of the evening down to a minimum: announcements, meet your neighbor, etc. After the introduction, we will have a number of people represent subject areas, specific projects, and have some skills share / education. A portion of these nights will turn into something we are experimenting with the title #CivicFreeSchool.
The idea is to have productive hacknights & open the door for community based education programs. We will start off with one to two community led classes & try to expose as many projects as possible. Attend a peer led class, hone your skills, jump on a BetaNYC project or a community project, or bring your own project and recruit help!
*A quick note about lighting talks, we will migrate some of them to BetaTalk nights. Some hacknights will still feature lightning talks, but with less frequency.
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#. THIS WEEKS’ CLASSES / PROJECTS
Training/Classes:
* Noel Hidalgo: Into to Civic Hacking 101, zero experience needed
* Chris Whong: Intro to Web Mapping with Leaflet
BetaNYC Projects:
* BudgetBuddy – An API for the $74Billion New York City Budget (Project Lead: Volkan Unsal)
* City Record Online – Scraping the City Record (Project Lead: NEEDED, please email noel@betanyc.us if you are up for the challenge.)
Community Projects:
* What are YOU working on? Add it as a comment on this week’s meetup page.
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#. BetaNYC’s first diversity & desires report!
Last week, we launched a campaign to broaden BetaNYC’s leadership. (Applications are open till Sunday night.) < http://bit.ly/betanyc-lead >
This week, we take another step into collaborative organizational goal setting. For the past few months, Noel has tore into the City’s demographics, reports, and community surveys. Through this research process, we discovered key insights into our lives, our neighbors, and how to increase our impact.
Today, we are launching an request for input (RFI) on our 2014-2015 diversity and desires report. In part funded by Code for America’s Brigade program, BetaNYC has taken a critical view of itself, the City around us, and City’s own technology and design ecosystem. We are challenging ourselves to build a civic maker community that is representative of the city itself. < http://bit.ly/betanyc-diversity >
Please add your comments by Sunday at 11:30 PM AND take the challenge to lead BetaNYC into the 21st Century.
* Report – http://bit.ly/betanyc-diversity
* Lead BetaNYC – http://bit.ly/betanyc-lead
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#. NYC’s Open Data Resources Spreadsheet
Have you ever asked, “Where in the heck do I go for… open data set?”
Yeah, so have we. To scratch our own itch, a couple of us have put together a collection of data resources, maps, tools, emails list / forums, and glossary of terms. For now, this document lives as a community owned spreadsheet. Feel free to add, copy, share this with your friends, coworkers, family, etc!!! < http://bit.ly/nyc-data-resources >