OpenAccessPhilly: civic action group from City of Philadelphia to host forum Oct. 28

A public/private stakeholders group convened by City of Philadelphia representatives charged with moving forward good government initiatives is hosting a day-long forum to develop action for the future.

The OpenAccessPhilly forum, called “Crowdsourcing at the Intersection,” will be held Friday, Oct. 28 at the University City Science Center Quorum space. The winners of the OpenDataRace are scheduled to be announced at then.

RSVP for the free event here.

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Baltimore requires city agencies to post data online

The Baltimore Sun covers a big step in that city government’s Open Baltimore initiative :

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said making the information public will help “innovative and creative people … find ways to improve service delivery and save money for taxpayers.” She signed an executive order Wednesday requiring city agencies to post data online as part of an effort called Open Baltimore.

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Code for America City of Philadelphia fellows and direction announced

The seven fellows who will work on an application to increase communication between the City of Philadelphia and residents as coordinated by the Code for America initiative have been announced recently.

From 360 candidates, a group of 20 were chosen to start in January 2011 training, visiting and then developing products to increase efficiency, productivity and accountability of four inaugural city governments. After a month of meeting with city officials, the seven fellows that Philadelphia has been issued will, like the rest of their colleagues, do their development work in the Bay Area headquarters of CFA.

See the timeline of the program’s inaugural year here. Below, meet Philly’s fellows and read a rough description of what they will be working on.

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Mayor Nutter on government transparency, city CTO and business retention

Copyright City of Philadelphia. Photograph by Mitchell Leff.

Since we launched a year-and-a-half ago, we’ve not only watched, but followed as closely as we could City of Philadelphia technology policy.

Even in our short tenure covering all that is involved — like municipal information technology, government transparency, citywide broadband network infrastructure, economic policy and much, much more — we’ve been witness to a city intent on finding new ways of utilizing technology and finding better ways of connecting with citizens.

Throughout, we’ve heard repeatedly from leaders that Mayor Michael Nutter understands the value of technology in city government and he is intent on involving Philadelphia’s technology community.

Though we write about these initiatives weekly, nothing was more of a reminder of the Mayor’s commitment to technology than when Nutter announced a $120 million capital investment in the Division of Technology during the pageantry of his budget address to City Council in March.

And with his support, DOT has been steered in a new direction, a Chief Technology Officer appointed to the mayoral cabinet, pilot programs created to attract technology businesses and broadband stimulus dollars and gigabit broadband chased.

So, we had to get the man on the phone to talk tech. Yesterday, we spoke with Mayor Nutter about government transparency, Philadelphia’s tax structure, and about his call to action to Philadelphia’s technology community. Our Q&A with Philadelphia’s Mayor after the jump.

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