[Discuss] Code for America

[Nilanjan Palit]

> > http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-innovations/code-for-america-an-elegant-solution-for-government-it-problems/2011/12/16/gIQAXrIu2O_story.html                            
> 
> This is a good story? This is a bad story? You agree with this? You don't agree? This story is worth us spending time to read, but not you to comment on?

I thought the title would have been enough to entice folks to read, but I agree that some editorial comment to accompany the link would enhance the message.

This project sounds like a great way to bring together technologists who want to give back to the community and the public sector's never ending need for IT development/growth/support at a cost that is attractive to the cash-strapped municipalities of today. Quoting from the article:

"Code for America is the technology world’s equivalent of the Peace 
Corps or Teach for America. The premise is simple and elegant. Code for America, a nonprofit group ... offers an alternative to the old, broken path of government IT. Young 
technophiles from Google and Microsoft apply to spend a year of their 
time working on problems they discover as on-site fellows in cities 
across the country. They bring fresh blood to the solution process, 
deliver agile coding and software development skills, and frequently 
offer new perspectives on the latest technology — something that is 
often sorely lacking from municipal government IT programs."
However, the real kicker, and part of my main motivation for posting on this list: "The code for all projects is open source and made available to any city 
or government entity. This means state and local governments gain a 
growing repository of well-written, modern code that, in many cases, 
will directly address specific programmatic needs common to governments 
providing services to the public. This is already proving to be a great 
way to solve problems quickly and at minimal cost."
2 of the main examples in the article are on Boston and how 6000 miles away Honolulu took advantage of the FOSS code & reused it to better its own public service.
-Nilanjan