The Distress Signal

What Can I Dev For My Country

A couple weeks ago I ran across this post from @corbett3000 about the need for greater civic involvement from the tech community. This was a call to build “stuff that matters” to help the country do more with less, keep our leaders honest and their governance transparent, and fix crap that’s broken.

Maybe it was a kernel of hope tucked away somewhere in my brain from seeing Obama elected, maybe it was some residual sense of community from a week spent at #drupalcon, maybe I just need some sleep, but either way this post has been speaking to me.

Still disoriented by my surprising lack of overbearing cynicism I’ve recently spent some time playing around with the API made available from the Sunlight Foundation which provides access to all sorts of cool data sources from Census Files to the FEC Disclosure Database to Senate Office Public Records and more. I can’t say I’ve actually produced anything that would be of any real use to anybody at this point but I am starting to get some ideas.

I also registered for the upcoming eDemocracy Camp going on here in DC this April. This whole optimism and participation thing feels a bit weird after 8 years of cynical obstinate opposition but I think I could get used to it. If you’re a techie in the DC area and are going to be at the eDemocracy camp I’ll see you there, if not maybe you should be asking: What can I develop for my country?