Introducing The California Public Technology Roundtable
Source: Medium | Catherine Geanuracos | March 22, 2019
California can lead the world in honest and effective government through best-in-class public technology
California is a bellwether state for the world. Transformative technologies, cultural movements, and political trends start here. We’re entering a new stage of possibility for public technology in California; ambitious initiatives are already happening, with more to come. A proposed new $36.2 million Office of Digital Innovation (ODI) could include as many as 50 budgeted positions, a $20 million innovation fund, enhanced training for state workers and an executive order to streamline state procurement. Those initiatives build on the incredible work of California’s Government Operations Agency in open data, civil service modernization and countless other areas. We strongly support the establishment and funding of the ODI.
“We’ve got to simplify, pull back all these layers of supposed complexity, and get down to the essentials. If we want people to engage with government, we should use the same tools that are getting them engaged with companies and institutions in private life.”
-Gavin Newsom, Governor of California and author of Citizenville
Looking to help shape, amplify and accelerate the implementation of this next phase, an inspiring array of leaders across California’s state and local governments, water utilities, volunteer technology community, and govtech companies came together at Pepperdine on February 9, 2019 to help shape the future of public technology in our state.
The event was instigated by the team behind an initiative designed to better connect Code for America brigades across the state, spearheaded by Patrick Atwater and Nina Kin. This group had already developed a document/set of principles (Pioneering a Brighter Future through a series of discussions in late 2018/early 2019 among brigade leadership) and started an ongoing community poll to solicit the civic tech volunteer community’s ideas for the Office of Digital Innovation. The top recommendation of the poll and a reference point for all our conversations is “encouraging more prototyping and proof-of-concept projects that get user tested by users BEFORE signing full-on multi-million dollar contracts.”
When these volunteer civic technology leaders connected with Pete Peterson, the Dean of the School of Public Policy at Pepperdine University, the group realized that this was a pivotal time for public sector technology, and warranted the creation of a new initiative to bring together the diverse leadership of the civic technology movement in California: The California Public Technology Roundtable.
We are building out concrete recommendations on how some of the proposals from the poll could be implemented, and tapping a wider set of civic tech experts to contribute even more ideas. We anticipate growing this network over time, and commit to attempting to develop a group of Roundtable participants that is reflective both of California’s diverse population, as well as our regional and skill-based diversity.
Peterson outlined why Pepperdine’s School of Public Policy is engaged in the Roundtable: “As a program focused on preparing leaders who better engage the public, the opportunity to participate in this great gathering was a no-brainer.” He added, “Technology is fundamentally changing the government-public relationship, and I want our program to both learn from and feed into this vital conversation for California’s future.”
We’re excited to be sharing the results of this first convening through a series of Medium posts. We hope these posts spark more conversation — we want your comments, and we anticipate hosting the next in-person conversation in May 2019 in the Bay Area. If you’re interested in learning more about future Roundtable events, please complete this form.
Additionally, we’re bringing these recommendations to State legislators, the Governor’s staff, and state administrative leaders at GovOps in the leadup to the budget and planning conversations for the ODI.
Here’s the first set of posts we’re launching, each focused on one potential element of the ODI and its work:
While each of these pieces has a main author, they are all the result of the conversations and ideas shared among the group that attended the first event, and many were written with multiple authors and editors.
Soon, we’ll be sharing writing on the top themes that emerged from our roundtable, including capacity-building and encouraging reuse and repurposing of technology, reimagining the DMV and its connection to identity management, and more over the coming weeks.