Code for America Names Local Government Partners for Its 2016 Fellowship Program
Kansas City, Missouri TommyBrison / Shutterstock.com
Among the priorities for 2016 fellows: Improve access to health and human services, reduce incarceration levels and promote economic development.
San Francisco-based Code for America, which embeds civic technologists in municipal governments around the nation in one-year fellowships to work on projects to improve government services, has named six local jurisdictions around the nation that will be part of its 2016 Fellowship Program: Kansas City, Missouri; Long Beach, California; New Orleans, Louisiana; New York City, New York; Salt Lake County, Utah; and Seattle, Washington.
“We are thrilled to announce our partnership with these six local governments in 2016. Each partner was selected for their commitment to making government services simpler, faster, and more effective for the people who use them,” said Jennifer Pahlka, founder and executive director of Code for America.
According to Code for America’s announcement, released Tuesday:
Governments and fellows selected for the 2016 Fellowship develop digital approaches to delivering public services that:
- improve access to health and human services in the City of Kansas City, Missouri and the City of New York, New York,
- safely reduce incarceration in Salt Lake County, Utah and the City of Seattle, Washington, and
- promote economic development opportunities in the City of New Orleans, Louisiana and the City of Long Beach, California.
Five of the six local jurisdictions have been part of the Fellowship program previously, including New Orleans.
"We are proud and honored to welcome Code for America back to New Orleans,” Mayor Mitch Landrieu said in Code for America’s announcement. “This partnership will support our economic opportunity strategy and generate tools for connecting disadvantaged job seekers and businesses to new opportunities. As a laboratory for innovation and change, New Orleans will directly engage fellows in some of our most important and transformational work.”
In the previous five years, Code for America’s Fellowship program has created more than 65 software applications with 38 municipal governments and worked with 126 fellows.
Michael Grass is Executive Editor of Government Executive’s Route Fifty.
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