GDG Athens | Code for Athens Launch

Editor's Notes

• #2: Pre-event slide
• #3: “We're working to make our event welcoming to everyone. If you have specific ideas on how we can make GDG Athens, Code for Athens, or the New Media Institute more inclusive, then please let us know gdgathens@ugahacks.com and nmi@uga.edu" We care about your pronouns - Add your pronoun while registration to share with speakers/other participants/organizers during the interactive sessions
• #4: Welcome to the Code for Athens launch and kick-off event! I’m so excited to see all of you here. Thank you so very much for taking some time out of your evening to join us. Also, huge, enormous thanks to Jeffrey and the Google Developers Group of Athens for hosting us tonight. Also, before we move on, just a quick heads-up that we’re recording our event this evening so that folks who can’t make it can view it later.
• #5: So, my name is John Weatherford. I’m a Senior Lecturer at the New Media Institute at UGA, and I’m also the brigade captain for Code for Athens—I’ll explain more about that last part in just a sec.
• #6: But first, before I dive in, take a moment to introduce yourself in the Zoom chat! Folks who are in the room with us, you can introduce yourselves to each other, but also maybe log on to the Zoom call and say hi. Just be sure your microphones are on mute! (Oh, and don’t worry—we won’t share this part in the archived recording later.)
• #7: Super-fun to briefly meet everyone here! So, you’re probably wondering, what is Code for Athens?
• #8: Code of Athens is a brand-new local chapter, or Brigade, of the national non-profit Code for America. Has anyone heard of Code for America?
• #9: To tell you more about both Code for America and some of the hopes we have for Code for Athens, I’d like to invite an exceptional team of capstone students from the New Media Institute who’ve been working with me all semester to get Code for Athens ready to launch. I’d like to introduce to you Jackie Jefferson, Jess L'Hommdieu, Heather McAbee, Jordan McGuire, and Molly Shapiro.
• #10: We are a brigade of the non-profit organization Code for America. We will use the resources and connections of this national organization to accomplish our mission. As a Code for America brigade, we believe that government can work for the people, by the people, in the digital age.
• #11: To give you a sense of the kind of work we hope Code for Athens will one day do, we’d love to tell you about two really impactful projects that have come from Code for America. The Clear My Record initiative has already helped over 100,000 people. This project helps people automatically get their records clear after a crime free period and/or law change. Getting records cleared can often be a tedious and expensive process, but with Code for America, it became quick and free.
• #12: Another powerful Code for America program is the food benefits program that came out of the California brigade of Code for America. Their project, GetCalFresh, has successfully made applying for food stamps easier. Before, people had to fill out a long, tedious application on a desktop computer. Now, the form can be filled out via smartphone and only takes about 10 minutes to complete. It also offers a digital enrollment assistant that keeps applicants updated on their status. We believe that Athens could benefit from programs like these, and can also see projects that help with other major issues in the community such as community and economic development, homelessness, and high food insecurity rate in schools.
• #13: Aren’t these students amazing? Please join me in giving them a hand. Everything you’re seeing today—this event, our website, our social media presences, and perhaps my favorite, our awesome logo—are thanks to them. Thank you so, so much Heather, Jackie, Jess, Jordan, and Molly.
• #14: So, you might be thinking, all of this sounds great, but who is Code for Athens for?
• #15: Code for Athens is for everyone: community organizers, developers, students, retirees, parents, government employees, researchers, private enterprises, non-profits, faculty, tech enthusiasts, townies, entrepreneurs, policy nerds. Everyone. A developer with minimal civic experience? Code for Athens is for you. A long-time Athenian involved in local government who’s never written a line of code? Code for Athens is for you. If Code for Athens is going to work—and I truly hope it will and will work hard to see that it does—it’s going to take all of Athens, and all Athenians. Now, we are hosting this event at UGA. I work at UGA, and you just heard from UGA students. But—I can’t emphasize enough that while Code for Athens is getting its start at UGA, it’s not just a UGA thing. I mean, look at our logo. No Arch, no red and black, no bulldogs (although Go Dawgs! Let’s beat Bama on Saturday). It’s not Code for UGA, it’s Code for Athens. As we’ll talk more about in a minute, we’ll need everyone’s help to make Code for Athens into a diverse organization whose members are representative of the community it aims to serve.
• #16: Code for Athens will work shoulder to shoulder with community organizations and government to build digital tools and services, change policies, and improve programs here in Athens—and beyond. Code for Athens isn’t here to do things to the community in Athens; we aim to be of the community, responding to its needs and its dreams for the future. My hope is that Code for Athens helps organize the wonderful, diverse, creative, talented folks—folks like you, like so many of my friends and so many of the people I’ve met in my nearly twenty years in Athens—in a way that helps build Athens into the city we all know it can be. If anyone here in is local government in Athens, or at a non-profit or a community organization, we want to learn from you, and then direct time, talent, and resources to helping you advance the work that you do every day.
• #17: So, what can you do to get involved? First, even if you’re not sure you want to jump in with both feet, we’d love it if you could...
• #18: Subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on social. We’ll only email you once or twice a month, and promise we won’t blow up your feeds, either.
• #19: Also, we’d love it if you might consider joining our Slack. Slack is a collaborative messaging app, and it’ll be the communications hub for Code for Athens. It’s easy and free with great apps for every platform. Also, by joining our Slack, you officially become a member of Code for Athens—which means, you can put it on your resumé. Just saying.
• #20: Links to all those steps should be getting dropped in the Zoom chat right now, but you can also check out the Get Involved page at codeforathens.org to find all of them in a single place. (Also, it’s a really pretty website with some super-cool drone footage of Athens.) Okay, so, next, if what you heard today resonated with you, and you really want to start engaging, let’s talk about what you can do. First,
• #21: Continue to attend our events! I’ll talk briefly about our plans for the future in a moment, but in general, Code for America brigades typically meet at least monthly, and we’d love to see you—virtually or in-person—at our future events. Next, we’d also love for you to...
• #22: Propose ideas. Notice that today we didn’t propose any specific projects we’re undertaking or even any precise areas of focus. That’s because we want to build and grow the Code for Athens community and network before charging head-first into our work. We want the projects we undertake to arise from community-identified needs and to be developed in partnership with local subject matter experts. So, now that we are—today!—taking those first steps towards building and growing our community, I’d love to start hearing from everyone about what our first project might be. You can talk to me directly today, or even better, share in the #project-ideas channel once you join our Slack. Also, if you’re really digging what we’re about, I’d also love for you to consider
• #23: Volunteering for Code for Athens leadership. I started Code for Athens, but I want it to quickly grow far beyond me. We need help networking, administering the organization, running social media, and so much more. If you have a skillset that you think could help Code for Athens grow, or if you have time you’re able to commit, please, talk to me! Finally, a few more steps we’d love for everyone to take.
• #24: First, invite friends and colleagues to join us, and make introductions to people you think we need to know or who you think need to be at the table as we begin this journey. I know only a small slice of Athens, and we need your help to connect Code for Athens to all of Athens. Finally, if you or your organization really dig the idea of Code for Athens, I’d be honored if you might consider
• #25: Supporting us financially. Now, I’ll be honest: this isn’t a pressing need at the moment. Our overhead is super-low right now. But! We hope to begin growing and making an impact in our community soon, and if you’d like to support us—monetarily, with space for events, or with other resources—don’t hesitate to get in touch.
• #26: So, what does the future hold?
• #27: First, y’all: it’s the holidays. We’re all super-busy. So, for the rest of December and into early January, we’re going to be focused on building our network and hopefully taking care of ourselves with a little hard-earned rest and relaxation. And when you’re relaxing with friends and family, don’t forget to keep alive everyone’s favorite holiday tradition: telling each person you meet about one new community organization they should join and sharing a link to that organization’s Get Involved page, just like you did when you were a small child.
• #28: Then, in mid to late January, we’ll begin holding regular meetings. When will those meetings be? Well, if you’re on our Slack, subscribed to our newsletter, or following us on social, you’ll be sure to know.
• #29: Finally, we hope to begin work on our first project in early spring.
• #30: So that’s everything we had planned for you tonight. Before we wrap up, I wanted to take some time to answer any questions y’all might have.
• #31: Alright, thanks again to everyone, and I look forward to working with you to build a better Athens, together.
• #32: [Move around at-will] Icebreaker ask attendees if any are from outside of Georgia to add to our map emoji check-in (ask folks to share an emoji of how they’re feeling) quick-fire questions (ask a series of quick questions that folks can post answers in the chat, ex. “Do you prefer frontend or backend development?”)