About
The NYC Civic Innovation Fellows Program is fostering the next generation of community leaders by developing digital and data literacy practices that are appropriate for the local constituencies they serve.
The Civic Innovation Fellowship is the first comprehensive program dedicated to training CUNY’s next generation of civic leaders while improving open data and public interest technology within community boards and other civic NYC organizations.
Cultivating the Next Generation of Civic Technologists
Fellows are carefully selected from various CUNY schools and programs for their strong civic-mindedness, appetite to learn, critical thinking skills, and being driven by a deeper purpose to support NYC communities Then, fellows are trained in public interest technology, civic technology, open data, geographic information systems (GIS), and service design fundamentals. They learn about the City’s history and how our good government movement developed. We orient fellows to a suite of digital communication and analytical tools. Many fellows learn what it is like to work in an office for the first time. As part of the training, fellows partner with community organizations to explore a variety of public interest technology projects.
The Fellowship is hosted out of the Manhattan Borough President’s Office, with support from the Office of Technology and Innovation’s Open Data Team and CUNY Service Corps.
Currently, our fellows are helping develop a comprehensive Mapping for Equity (M4E) program. M4E is a civics and data literacy program that teaches the public how to see data while collecting data on New York City’s under-mapped and under-represented public spaces.
We use open-source tools and practices to collect geographical open data to create accurate representations of spaces and analyze where public amenities are and are not and which ones are in need.
Then, we work with local partners to sustain the data collection. If successful, public spaces will be better reflected in community conversations and in open data with their amenities and accessibility features open to all.
Partners
This program is a partnership between the Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine, BetaNYC, CUNY, and the Fund for the City of New York. Manhattan Borough President Gale A. Brewer started the program, and is financially supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and the City University of New York.
Contact the Fellowship Team
To learn more or explore partnership opportunities, email us at cif@beta.nyc
Who are our future Fellows
Someone getting started in their professional career and is comfortable with a computer, digitally literate with Google Docs or Microsoft Office, has access to high-speed internet, and has a desire to address public-interest problems with technology, data, or design.
“Through this fellowship experience, I gained exposure to the work of various city government agencies. I learned the powerful impact civic tech organizations, such as BetaNYC, can make in building an inclusive community”
SHOVAN BALA
“I was never aware of the different programming or mapping software. Learning all these made me rethink about my major and possibly my career.”
AHNAF TAZWAR
Fellowship Curriculum
Being a good neighbor
- NYC’s history & Government Structure
- How to participate and join your Community Board & NYPD Precinct Community Councils
- How to testify at a City Council Hearing or Agency Hearing
- How to file a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request
- What is open data and open government?
Welcome to Public Interest and Civic Technology
- What is Public Interest Technology and Civic Hacking.
- Roots, values, and the future.
- A civic hackers guide to Google
- An introduction to open source licensing, copyleft, creative commons, and copyright.
Service Design
- What is Civic Service Design and Human Centered Design
- Intro to Civic & Service Design
- Building “With, not for…” and the fight for Social / Digital Justice
Open Source Community Foundations
- Beginners Guide to Open Source
- [Task management and collaboration]
- Three key elements that define every open source project
- Things newcomers to open source rarely ask but often wonder
Application Fundamentals
- Building apps for a complex world.
- How the internet works.
- Encrypt all the bits, an introduction to security.
Open Data
- Big data, small data, and the open data movement.
- Using Data and “Data Wrangling”.
- Data Biases and data for good.
- New York City’s and New York State’s Open Data Portals.
- NYC.gov Web Apps
Team Communications & Project Management
- How to use Slack & other group chatting tools.
- How to communicate via safe and secure channels.
- The story of self and motivating a movement.
- Project management 101 and tools.
- Getting Commitment, conflict resolution, & de-escalation.
- Building Relationships.
- What is a hackathon?
- Basic First Aid and CPR skills.
Mapping and Cartography
- The wonderful world of maps
- Online Mapping Tools (i.e. Intro to Google Maps, Google Earth, and CartoDB)
- Beginners’ guide to OpenStreetMap
- Introduction to Geographic Data Formats and QGIS
- NYC.gov Maps
