#the_message

Friend's there are three quick things we want to share with you!

+ Hacknights in Queens + CodeAcross NYC 2015  + BetaNYC's 2015 Diversity and Desires Report

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++ Hacknights in Queens ++

This week, we kickoff our Queens hacknights with Coalition for Queens! Join us as we add our third borough and spread the civic hacking love! For those of you who haven't attended a hacknight, you should do two things: 1. check out the hacknight page and leave a comment on what you want problem you want to solve here. 2. join BetaNYC's Developers group and introduce yourself.

If you can't join us in Queens, we'll be back in Manhattan on 4 Feb.

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++ CodeAcross NYC 2015 ++

We are finalizing the details for our third annual data day and want you to save the date!

On February 21 and 22, join us as we teach, make, and create tools relating to NYC’s data. Join us for two fun filled days of classes, workshops, unconference sessions, coding, scraping, parsing, and partying.

Day's Outcomes: + Teach how to use and interpret NYC’s Open Data. + Make new open data by scraping or unlocking static data. + Create tools and prototypes that help us understand the city’s open data.

Save the date RSVP list < http://codeacrossnyc.splashthat.com/ >

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++ BetaNYC's 2015 Diversity and Desires Report ++

In follow up to the People Roadmap to a Digital New York City, this community co-authored a diversity and desires report. If you are interested in making tools to help all New Yorkers, you should read this report. In it, we outline key municipal and community demographics, and how BetaNYC seeks to address these challenges.

To build a more connected New York City, BetaNYC is committed to the following 2015 goals:

Help the city improve its open data and civic technology practice.

Partner with allied organizations to host weekly hacknights across the city.

Develop a “Civic Technologist / Hacker” curriculum.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

"The_Message" is BetaNYC's newsletter named after Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five's rap. Join our meetup and learn how to keep from going under. 

Agenda * Hacknights in Manhattan and Queens * Recap of our BetaTalk with NYC's First Chief Tech Officer * NYC.gov is looking to hire a few good civic hackers * BetaNYC in the News * How to support BetaNYC in 2015

  =+=  2015 Hacknights!  =+= This is going to be a super exciting year! Last night, we kicked off our Manhattan hacknights at New Work City! It has long been our goal to diversity hacknight locations. 

Today, we announce a partnership with Coalition for Queens, and add Queens to our tri-borough presence! Join us!

Upcoming Hacknights and events: - 21 Jan, Civic Hacknight in Manhattan - 28 Jan, Civic Hacknight in Queens - 4 Feb, Civic Hacknight in Manhattan - 11 Feb, Civic Hacknight in Manhattan - 20 Feb, Code Across NYC 2015 (This is a save the date for our weekend long code & edit-athon)  - 25 Feb, Civic Hacknight in Queens

  =+= 2-2-2-2 =+= Recap of our BetaTalk with NYC's First Chief Tech Officer

Speaking of an exciting new year, we are honored to have Minerva Tantoco at the City's first Chief Technology Officer.

Shortly before 2014 closed, we sat down with her at Microsoft Civic. If you haven't had a chance to hear her amazing story and what her office is looking to do, WATCH THE VIDEO!

  =+= 3-3-3-3 =+= NYC GOV is looking for a few good civic hackers, data scientists, and project managers.

Just as CTO Tantoco mentioned in her video, the Mayor's Office of Technology and Innovation is looking to hire a number of civic hackers. FOR US TO DO OUR JOB, WE NEED THE BEST CANDIDATES IN THESE POSITIONS! If you want to service you City from within City Hall, apply to these jobs today!!

- MOTI Technology Solutions Manager (179141 - Note, there are two openings!!) - MOTI Product Manager, R & D (179778) - MOTI Project Manager (180053 - Note, there are two openings!!) - MOTI Director of Strategy (179139) - MOTI Tech & Innovation Policy Advisor (179144) - MOTI Innovation Advisor (179601) - MOTI Chief of Staff (179134)

If you are into data science and want to get an inside track on using the City's data, check own NYC Analytic's positions. Note, there are FOUR positions open!

- MODA Data Analyst (172461)

Additionally, DORIS (Department of Records & Information Services) is looking for two talents techs.

- Director for NYC Records Management (180279) - Senior IT Project Manager (179618)

Note: If these links don't work, search Indeed.com or the City's jobs search for the job title or the job code.

  =+= 4-4-4-4 =+= BetaNYC is in the News!!

- Holiday Shopping: A Civic App Wish List for 2015 - Data advocates testify on next steps for 311 and transportation data - More Bus Data, Better Bus Service: Kallos, Hackers Nudge MTA - Councilman, advocates call for improving police data - Sign-up problems plague start of municipal ID program

  =-= $-$-$-$ =-= Help sustain BetaNYC!!

BetaNYC is New York City’s civic tech and open government community. Last year, we hosted 54 events demystifying open data and government, worked with transportation advocates to improve NYPD’s crash data, we got the City Council to adopt 21st century rules, and worked with the Council and the Mayor to put the City’s Laws, Charter, and Record online and in a machine readable format. To date, we have helped the City adopt three open government and data laws.

-= Community Updates =-

This month, we've gone before City Council to fight for better open data and 311 program. In short, we have one of the best open data programs in the world, but we can be better. This can only be done by sustained gardening. The Council and Agency representatives appreciated our insights and we are already working together to make our ideas reality. Stay tuned!!

 - Open Data Program insights and recommendations 

 - NYC 311 recommendations

Additionally, the City Record Online project is progressing quite smoothly. We've submitted a draft proposal for a City Record API and have outlined draft schemas for public hearings / meetings and procurement. You can check out the rest of this project here.

* NYC's Chief Analytics officer started this week. We are super excited to end the year with an experienced leadership team. Let's throw them some twitter thanks by tweeting the following "I'm so excited for NYC's #OpenData & #CivicTech future w/ CIO @AnneMRoest, CTO @minervatweet, & now CAO @AMashariki!" or you can retweet this message.

* Lastly, we're really excited about our friends at Personal Democracy Media launching Civic Hall! In the coming months, we'll be sharing some of their events and programming on our calendar.

-= Upcoming Events =-

* Dec 3, Hacknight in Brooklyn!

 - http://www.meetup.com/betanyc/events/208022292/

* Dec 8, Geo/Hack/Viz Holiday Happy Hour <- PARTY!!!!! ok, just a happy hour, but you should come.

 - https://www.eventbrite.com/e/geohackviz-holiday-happy-hour-tickets-14195357697 

* Dec 10, Hacknight in Manhattan!

 - http://www.meetup.com/betanyc/events/208809832/

* Dec 17, BetaTalk - Save the Date!!!

 - http://www.meetup.com/betanyc/events/208809702/

-= Fellowships =-

* Data and Society 

- Data and Society is looking for a 2015 fellowship team http://www.datasociety.net/initiatives/fellows-program/

* Flatiron School

 - LEARN TO CODE - Flatiron School is offering a NYC Web Development Fellowship http://flatironschool.com/nycworkforce1/

-= Jobs afoot =-

* CUP is hiring a design team:

- http://welcometocup.org/NewsAndEvents/CUPIsHiringADesigner

* Data and Society is looking to hire a researcher 

 - http://www.datasociety.net/jobs/2014/11/researcher-enabling-connected-learning/

* NYC.gov is hiring Application Systems Administrator

 - http://on.nyc.gov/1F7ue7G

* Interesting positions at NYC DOT

 - Associate Commissioner for Franchises & Street Furniture - http://on.nyc.gov/11GEwO1

 - Public Engagement Specialist - http://on.nyc.gov/14RMMfm

* Listing of NYC.gov IT, Data Analyst, & Design jobs

This week, BetaNYC is in two places at once!

Tomorrow, a new crew of community leaders will take over hosting hacknights & #CivicFreeSchool. As we grow, we're excited to grow BetaNYC's leadership team. Join them tomorrow at Dev BootCamp and keep hacking the planet!

Also, _THE CODE FOR AMERICA SUMMIT_!!

Chris, Ariel, and I are out in San Fransisco for the nation's primer civic technology and design conference. Code for America is putting together one of the world's best open government and civic technology conferences: http://bit.ly/cfasummit2014

Additionally, CfA will live webcast their main stage speeches.

During the event, catch the buzz on Twitter #cfasummit: http://bit.ly/cfasummittwitter

On October 15, BetaNYC and Microsoft will co-host a #CfASummit in NYC / best of BetaTalk. Join us online or on October 15th and learn about the latest in technology and design!

Also, Code for America has archived 62 speeches from 2013 here:

http://bit.ly/cfasummit2013video

http://bit.ly/cfasummit2013videobyviews

Webcast time zone converted (starts 2:30 pm Pacific time, Tue Sept 23. then 1:30 pm day two and three): 

http://bit.ly/cfawebcastday1worldtime

http://bit.ly/cfawebcastday2worldtime

http://bit.ly/cfawebcastday3worldtime

See you on the internets!!!

Neighbors,

Thanks for coming to last night’s hacknight and #CivicFreeSchool. It was fun meeting many new faces and experimenting with our community engagement framework. For those of you who missed last night, this is all the news fit to scan!

Here’s a brief recap of things you should note:

* Calls to action / Notes * Upcoming Events * Slides * Projects

-=- ** Calls to action / Notes **

+ Last year, we called on NYC.gov to adopt a “We the People” petition site. Yesterday, CM Vacca introduced such a bill. We are super excited to have an opportunity to work with the Council and bring about 21st century tools. Here’s a brief NY Times article about the proposed legislation. More to come shortly.

+ SUNDAY DEADLINE FOR TWO BETANYC CALLS TO ACTION

* We are growing our community leadership team and want you to join us. * We've penned our first diversity and desires report and need you to help us think about the future goals for NYC's civic technology and design ecosystem. 

-=- ** Upcoming Events **

* Tues, Sep 16 - NYC BigApps Award Ceremony

* Wed, Sep 17 - BetaNYC Hacknight & #CivicFreeSchool ** Peer Class - John Thornton - MTASanitizer, a proxy server for GTFS data ** Peer Class - IBM's BlueMix, cloud based, Open Source, development and runtime environment.

* Thurs, Sept 28 - GitHub's Patchwork Night

* Sat, Nov 8 - Save the date for Civic Design Camp!!

-=- ** Slides **

* Leaflet Demo Repo * Into to NYC's Civic Hacking

-=- ** Projects **

Editor's note - We're experimenting with the creation of a monthly or weekly newsletter. Give us feedback on our Facebook group.

-=-== THE_MESSAGE for 8 Sept 2014 ==-=-

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.

 * Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eC2SK8Ap0o

 * 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 [email protected] 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?”