Over the last decade, data and technology have increasingly been the foundation of successful political campaigns and projects to engage citizens in the political process in new and innovative ways. Embrace your passion for code and for politics in a building shaped like a planetarium.
The program begins with a story of making the transition from industry to politics from the perspective of an engineer. It will continue with short demos of some of the next-level projects happening in political technology and civic engagement. Jared Marcotte and Mo Maraqa from the New Organizing Institute Education Fund will then lead a deep-dive session, demonstrating the development of a tool that was built overnight, with no budget, during the 2010 General Election. By delivering polling location information (using the Voting Information Project-powered Google API) with a bit of humor and irreverence, the site received 36,000 Facebook likes and 250,000 hits within 36 hours of its launch.
We will conclude with a mock-up session, where participants have the opportunity to brainstorm, diagram, and present their own political technology projects. Individuals from a variety of organizations in the political technology space will be available as resources to facilitate the mock-up process.
