BetaNYC

Timeline of action, change, and progress:

Background & 2008

During the US Presidential election a number of civic minded technologists, developers, designers, advocates, activists, and journalists untied under the banner of “Twitter VoteReport.” Spurred on by a Personal Democracy Forum blog post from Allison Fine, fanned by Nancy Scola, the Associate Editor of techPresident, and the pioneering work of Ushahidi, concerned citizens worried about voter fraud and interested in new ways of civic engagement did something never done before. Working across America, they rallied together to create a website, mobile app, and administrative dashboard where citizens could “check-in” to their poll site, report on wait time, election shenanigans, and see others’ reports.

This series of events, hackathons, and developer / designer days, set the foundation for what would become the Open New York Forum. (Rocketboom Video, Fast Company Article, Twitter Blog, Om Mailk)

2009

• March, Matt Cooperrider starts meetup group and runs first event called “Mapping the Territory” – and 35 people attended. NY Observer Article.
• The NYC Open Government Meetup changes its name to Open NY and adopts a platform of openness.
• Participation Camp, in the lead up to Personal Democracy Forum’s annual conference, Open NY hosted a two day unconference focused on new ideas and tools to support citizen participation in Government. < http://www.streetfilms.org/participation-camp-2009-change-the-rules/ > and < http://www.ugotrade.com/2009/07/10/participation-camp-nyc-open-government-open-organizations-open-collaboration-open-data-and-apps-for-democracy/ >
• Organized and presented community testimony to Councilmember Brewer’s committee on a proposed Open Data Law.
• Organized three BigApps Dev Camp to seed the NYC.gov’s call for datasets and idealized apps.
• – BigApps Dev Camp #1
• – BigApps Dev Camp #2
• – BigApps Dev Camp #3
• Demanded that BigApps campaign/challenge become more transparent which resulted in a meeting and presentation at the Open Planning Project < http://vimeo.com/7479859 >.
• CapitolCamp: Collaborated with the New York State Senate and New York State Chief Information Officer / Office of Technology to produce CapitalCamp, the first unconference inside a State Capitol building. < http://www.nysenate.gov/video/2009/jun/15/nys-senate-cio-andrew-hoppin-capitol-camp >
• Open NY Summit & Codeathon, a continuation of Participation Camp where attendants briefed on the status of projects and tools. YouTube Playlist for this event: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL11E7C4F68DEFAE4A (7 vids, including Matt’s summary of OpenNY past and present)

2010

• Coordinated with Personal Democracy Forum’s World Wide Meetup Day.
• Provided testimony to NY City Council on Open Data (June 16)
• – Video testimony
• – Committee Blog 
• – NY Senate CIO, Andrew Hoppin
• – See Click Fix
• – Digital Democracy
• Lobbied the NYCEDC and Challenge Post, the organizers of NYC’s BigApps campaign, to host public information sessions around datasets and goals of the competition. < http://www.meetup.com/NYCBIGAPPS/#past >
• Organized a panel session for Re:Group, beyond models of consensus. This was a series of conversations, workshops, and installations at Eyebeam focusing on authorized and unauthorized “crowd sourcing”.

2011

• Partnered with New Work City, an NYC coworking office space, to be part of New Work University. New Work City University was a series of monthly classes and workshops focusing on cutting edge conversations affecting the NYC technology / start up community.
• Introduced NYC’s Chief Digital Officer to the technology community.
• Hosted OpenGov Camp, an unconference about tools for change.
• In Spring, spearheaded the creation of the Transparency Work Group linking together NYC’s civil society and civil liberty organizations with policy technologists to advocate for the passing of NYC.gov’s open data legislation.
• At ReinventNYC.gov, a municipal hackathon to re-imaging NYC.gov, members of the Open NY community won the best interface award – BetaNYC.org
• Through Spring and into winter, Open NY’s organizing efforts were invested in working and negotiation with NYC’s Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DoITT) and NY City Council to bring about the right legal language we want to see in the City’s Open Data Law.

2012

• Focused efforts on private conversations with City Councilmembers and NYC’s DoITT to further developments on (then Intro-29a) Local Law 11 and open data efforts in NYC.
• Local Law 11 of 2012 is passed. This law is heralded as the most progressive municipal open data law.
• NYC Open Data Policy Hack Day, members of the community pre-organized responses and attended with a list of suggestions that were incorporated into the NYC.gov OpenData Standards.
• Continuing our tradition of placing an event around Personal Democracy Forum, members of the Open NY community organize PDF Applied, bringing leading civic “hackers” together with practitioners in government and NGOs to build tools that enhance civic life through technology-driven innovation.
• In response to the Superstorm Sandy, NY Tech Responds was formed and members of the Open NY community stand up several tools to help the affected region.
• Sandy Coworking, as half of Manhattan sat without power and the area’s coast line in ruin, New Yorkers needed a place to reconnect, recharge, and reengage with their community. The Sandy Coworking map connected offices with available capacity with individuals and organizations who needed a warm place, electricity, and connectivity – physical, emotional, and digitally.
• Code for America hires Noel Hidalgo to be their NYC Program Manager and official takes over as Open NY Forum’s sponsor.

2013

• Pushes NYTM to engage the NYC tech meetup community and educate the community about NYC’s 2013 election.
• Hosts NYTM’s only community forum on the future of NYC government’s tech policy.
• Hosts Code Across NYC – engages the tech community to build civic apps and discuss future tech policy initiatives.
• Becomes an inaugural member of NYC Government’s CodeCorp.
• Stood with the NYC Comptroller on the launch of Checkbook 2.0.
• Becomes the largest civic technology and open government.
• Celebrated the 1 year birthday of Local Law 11 of 2012 and called for stronger enforcement provisions.
• Supported the NYC EDC’s reframing of NYC BigApps to be civic incubator and hosts several sessions to for the community to volunteer and support NYC BigApps’ events.
• Partners with OpenPlans to host a weekly “Planning+Tech, a #CivicHackNight”
• Relaunches NYC’s Open Transportation Meetup
• After four years as an informal organization/meetup, we rebrand ourself as #BetaNYC and file paperwork to be a formal legal organization.