Code for America summit; digital nations need new institutions; physical books as raw souvenirs.
Week
This week I’ve been thinking about the ideas shared at the Code for America Summit. There were some great talks and discussions on the live stream and I’m looking forward to watching the videos when they’re published.
One of the sessions that caught my eye was the panel discussion Building a 21st Century Transportation Network Through Public-Private Partnerships. The panel discussed public-private data sharing and the partnerships between the city of Boston with Waze and Uber. A strong theme from the discussion: government should serve all citizens, businesses get to choose.
Tom Loosemore also shared exciting ideas in his talk on Government as a Platform: How New Foundations Can Support Natively Digital Public Services. Hugely recommend reading through Tom’s slide deck on why digital nations need new institutions.
I’m also working with Freya Harrison on a sci-comm project. We met up this week for a planning session on the project. More on this soon.
Notes
- ‘Physical books are raw souvenirs, totems pulled through space and time, laden with emotional value, products of an open relationship between the reader and the object’
- Cultural digital newsletter
- The future arrives at different speeds
- Sometimes the user need is ‘because democracy’
[image: queues for escalators at new New Street, Birmingham]
alyson fielding 