Code for Boston meeting around a conference table.
Code for Boston meeting in person. Read more about their Maple Testimony app in this newsletter.

Welcome to the ACT July Newsletter! We’re hoping that everyone is staying safe and cool during the extreme weather we’re having.

Writing out our values

After a few weeks of reviewing what volunteer groups put together in 2017, we now have an initial draft of our mission, values, and operating principles. Thank you to everyone who contributed their feedback!

The next step will be to share the draft document with our delegates for feedback. We’ll meet at a delegate-only meeting on July 27th to review the proposal and possibly vote for its approval. In the meantime, you can read and comment on the proposed document here!

Code for Boston’s MAPLE Testimony goes live in Massachusetts

As mentioned in the Boston Globe and Commonwealth Magazine, Code for Boston’s MAPLE app - the Massachusetts Platform for Legislative Engagement - aims to make it easy for MA residents to submit testimony to the state Legislature on the bills that determine the future of the Commonwealth. MAPLE will launch their v1 app on Thursday, July 20 after a year of amazing work by a dedicated team of Code for Boston volunteers, led by Matt Victor, in partnership with the NULawLab at Northeastern. Learn more about the project (and check out the code!) on Github.

Florida Resource Map

In recent months, student interns and the developer team at Florida Community Innovation (FCI) have been creating version three of the Florida Resource Map. The Map is a tool for Floridians to find social services (food banks, job resources, healthcare, etc.) near them on a unified digital platform. Our tool is also designed so social workers can customize suggestions of resources for their clients. The Map will compile a database of resources gathered from our nonprofit partners across Florida.

ACT reaches twenty members

ACT continues to grow, with three more members signing on and bringing our total number of members to twenty. We were recently joined by Code for Atlanta, Code for Hawaii and OpenSTL (St Louis). 

Does your local civic tech organization have a story to tell? Want to be featured in our next newsletter? Reach out to us at hello@civictechnologists.org

Thanks for all you do!

Thanks again for all of your support and everything you do.

– ACT Comms Team