Philly Software for Citizens Brainstorming Meeting

I'd like to see a community in Philadelphia that is concerned with the effective creation and distribution of software that allows city residents/citizens to better use and affect their city.  This partly came out of a report that I put together for a class that I took in the Spring.  The report was called "Phillyware: Taking Philadelphia into the 21st Century through Software Developer Civic Involvement".

Anyway, I'd like to get more people in on generating ideas for what this should look like.  So, I'm planning a brainstorming session.

The flyer:

The invitation:

Event Page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=124590897575130&ref=mf

Please come and join Philadelphia software developers, designers, and technology advocates in discussion about creating a place for developers to innovate around software tools that can better enable residents to use and affect their city.  Let's brainstorm what this could look like, some potential roadblocks, logistical considerations, etc.

Consider three aspects: community engagement + developer innovation + political advocacy = Software for Citizens*.

What: Philly Software for Citizens Brainstorming Session

Where: Independents Hall, 20 North 3rd Street, Philadelphia, PA

When: June 24th, 6:30 PM

Why:

• To keep local government and authorities accountable in the data they release and in how they release data
• To allow Philadelphians to think ahead of the curve about what their city can be
• Because we ARE citizens
• Because it'd be fun (you know it would!)

Some possibilities for discussion:

• Periodic [un]conferences around those three areas
• A community around a project repository (like Gnome.org, but around OpenPlans.org, for example)
• Meetings with Philadelphia community groups
• Camps/Hackathons (like in Ottawa: http://opendataottawa.ca/)
• Bring your own ideas...

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* "Citizens" in this case isn't political; it just refers to participating members of society. See the Facebook group (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=131677170182058) for more information.