Civic Tech – Of the people, by the people and for the people
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Data acquisitionFatou-MengeDigital mediaObservational studyBitHacker (term)NeuroinformatikComputer-assisted translationRight angleComputer animationLecture/Conference
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Fatou-MengeOpen setDigital signalSystem programmingMultilaterationProjective planeOpen setDigitizingArithmetic meanWordTerm (mathematics)Level (video gaming)Interactive televisionProcess (computing)Form (programming)Physical systemField (computer science)Lecture/ConferenceMeeting/Interview
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Web serviceLocal ringCursor (computers)TelecommunicationWeb serviceTask (computing)Level (video gaming)Service (economics)MikroblogDependent and independent variablesForm (programming)AuthorizationPhysical systemOpen setSoftware crackingBinary fileEmailMathematics
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Open setDifferent (Kate Ryan album)Open setMedical imagingStapeldateiXMLUML
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InformationInformation and communications technologyTelecommunicationInformationRepresentation (politics)Presentation of a groupElectronic Government
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Open setVector potentialUsabilityPairwise comparisonTerm (mathematics)State of matterService (economics)Ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopyRight angleElectronic GovernmentWebsiteMobile appLatent heatXMLUML
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Computer configurationTorusProcess (computing)Radio-frequency identificationWeb serviceService (economics)Multiplication signOffice suiteAxiom of choiceForceFilm editingLecture/ConferenceMeeting/InterviewXMLComputer animation
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Computing platformService (economics)Range (statistics)Endliche ModelltheorieVirtual machineFilm editingSet (mathematics)Real numberInformationComputing platformElectronic GovernmentGradient descentDistanceMobile appWebsiteDigitizingXMLUML
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InformationDifferent (Kate Ryan album)NumberComputing platformWeb 2.0Meeting/Interview
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SpacetimeService (economics)Web serviceBuildingProduct (business)Mobile appExpected valueInformationField (computer science)Lecture/Conference
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Touch typingService (economics)Touch typingComputer configurationSpace groupSpacetimeCASE <Informatik>Group actionXMLComputer animation
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Touch typingFatou-MengeOpen setGroup actionSoftwareNeuroinformatikHacker (term)Computing platformSystem administratorMappingNumberLecture/ConferenceMeeting/Interview
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Cartesian coordinate systemFile formatSoftware developerProduct (business)Goodness of fitLecture/Conference
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Link (knot theory)Slide ruleShared memoryInclusion mapCollaborationismGoodness of fitComputing platformSurjective functionComputer animationLecture/Conference
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Digital signalCollaborationismClassical physicsChainNumber
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Arithmetic meanProcess (computing)Parallel portDifferent (Kate Ryan album)Computer animation
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Online helpBus (computing)Universe (mathematics)Multiplication signReal-time operating systemWave packetWordElectronic visual displayGroup actionComputer animation
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Real-time operating systemStudent's t-testUniverse (mathematics)AuthorizationRight angleView (database)Group actionElectronic visual displayInternet service providerLecture/ConferenceMeeting/Interview
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WebsiteMobile appStudent's t-testSpacetimeCollaborationismTime zoneSoftware developerComputer animation
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Digital signalCodeAddressing modeSpacetimeWebsitePrototypeResultantSoftwareCartesian coordinate systemOpen setComputer programmingInformationNumberClassical physicsCodeMultiplication signLattice (order)Lecture/Conference
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Group actionMobile appForm (programming)RoutingCartesian coordinate systemPlanningBasis <Mathematik>Forcing (mathematics)RootBlogComputer programmingMeeting/InterviewLecture/Conference
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CodeComputer programmingProduct (business)Data managementMobile appSoftware developerMeeting/Interview
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Computing platformArithmetic progressionInheritance (object-oriented programming)CASE <Informatik>Process (computing)Lecture/Conference
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MathematicsProcess (computing)Filter <Stochastik>Inheritance (object-oriented programming)Square numberPhysical systemDatabase
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Wallpaper groupDirection (geometry)Link (knot theory)Lecture/Conference
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Service (economics)Fatou-MengeOpen setAddress spaceOffice suitePhysical systemProcess (computing)Cartesian coordinate systemReliefInterface (computing)Flow separationMobile appLecture/ConferenceMeeting/Interview
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Proof theoryFunctional (mathematics)SpacetimeMetropolitan area networkInteractive televisionMathematical analysisLecture/ConferenceComputer animation
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Ideal (ethics)Staff (military)Hecke operatorCodeOnline helpSpacetimeSound effectComputer programmingVideo gameInteractive televisionSoftware developerProjective planeField (computer science)Goodness of fitMassHacker (term)Video projector
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Automatic differentiationSpherical capNeuroinformatikCartesian coordinate systemInformationFilm editingWeightBitDigital mediaTrailOffice suiteSource codeFood energyMobile appOpen set
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Different (Kate Ryan album)NumberGreatest elementCondition numberOpen setConnected spaceBitLecture/Conference
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PermanentRaw image formatSet (mathematics)Open setWeb 2.0Electronic GovernmentDigital mediaMeeting/Interview
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InformationWell-formed formulaWeb 2.0FeedbackGroup actionAuthorizationLevel (video gaming)Bus (computing)Scheduling (computing)Process (computing)Open setImplementationComputing platformSlide ruleSystem administratorVideo gameCollaborationismLecture/ConferenceMeeting/Interview
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CollaborationismHacker (term)ImplementationHacker (term)CollaborationismReal-time operating systemInternetworkingKey (cryptography)Point (geometry)Internet service providerPrototypeInformationSystem administratorUltraviolet photoelectron spectroscopyOrder (biology)XMLUML
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Hacker (term)Physical systemWhiteboardUltraviolet photoelectron spectroscopyCollaborationismDivisorMobile appComputer programmingTouch typingOpen setFile formatCodeSoftware developerRight angleOrder (biology)Lecture/ConferenceMeeting/Interview
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CodeOpen setSoftwareWordSoftware developerBasis <Mathematik>Scaling (geometry)Inheritance (object-oriented programming)Mobile appProjective planeRight angleXMLComputer animation
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WebsiteCodeComputer animationLecture/Conference
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Data acquisitionComputer animation
Transcript: English(auto-generated)
00:15
Hello everyone and welcome to this session on civic tech. The topic is heavily inspired by the work Stefan and I do.
00:24
Stefan Kaufmann to my right, he's just finishing his studies in media informatics and has been very active as a civic hacker in his hometown Ulm in the south of Germany. And he's going to elaborate a bit more on his experience later in the session. I'm Julia Kloeber.
00:40
I work at the Open Knowledge Foundation that's an international NGO working on various topics and projects around openness. And I'm also currently working on a project that's closely related to the topic civic tech, which I'm also going to mention a bit later. But before we dive into some practical examples, it's important to quickly look at a definition
01:02
of civic tech. So it's a pretty new field. There's no ultimate definition of it yet. There's not even a Wikipedia article about it yet. So let's take the term civic tech apart and look at the two words it consists of. Civic, meaning relating to a citizen, a city, citizenship, or community affairs.
01:24
And tech, fairly easy, the short form of technology. So ergo, this is what a definition of civic tech could look like. Civic tech are digital tools and technology that improve public processes and systems, promote engagement between community and governments, and promote the lives of individual citizens.
01:43
So civic tech helps citizens to better interact with their government, partake in democracy, and promote an open and transparent governing body. That's slightly abstract, I have to admit. That's why we're leaving the abstract level now and going to take a look at some examples. We have two examples and later on some more.
02:02
So the first one here. Yeah, this is Open 311. That's quite a hands-on tool that improves the communication between the city government, or local government, and the citizens. Imagine the public sidewalk waste bin in front of your house is overflowing, and there's cracks in the pavements, and lights not working, the street light is not working.
02:22
So whom are you going to call? In the United States, there's service hotlines like 311. And services like this here, this is Chicago's 311 service tracker. This allows you to find out whether somebody already called in those issues. And whether they've been assigned to the relevant city authorities already, and what's the status on them.
02:40
You can even get status updates if this is a waste basket in front of your house. So you'll be notified by email whenever a change occurs on this task. You already have seen this over and over again, but still, open spending driven by the community creates visualizations, which allow a completely different look on public finances,
03:02
making budgets more transparent. And not only to citizens, but often also to lawmakers, which take this as the first real opportunity to see what they're actually deciding upon. So these are two examples of what is possible through an open government, and a community working together.
03:21
So those two examples already suggest Civic Tech can help to improve a couple of things like the following, for example, political participation, by enabling citizens to connect with one another and with their elected representatives. Or looking at information provision via governmental websites, for example, we are able to access information 24-7, and that's something we already take for granted.
03:45
And besides improving the way of communication between GOVs and citizens, technology can also increase the efficiency within government. So here are some terms and concepts you might already know about in the last couple of years, governments have been opening up and
04:02
started to leverage technology. And I guess almost 100% of German cities nowadays have their own website, if not even specific apps and services. But still, when we compare online governmental services with commercial services, there's this gap, right?
04:20
Of course, it's not fair to compare city GOVs with startups, but still, I believe there's a lot of unused potential. And of course, there's some challenges, specific challenges that city GOVs are focusing that hinder them from developing state of the art technology tools. And challenges that hinder them to be as innovative as they could be.
04:46
Let's take a quick look at those challenges. Well, the first one is a no brainer. Cities are on a notoriously tight budget, and there's just no way that a city can go ahead and let streets fall into disrepair or cut school budgets to get e-participation or government 2.0 along and
05:03
get away with that. Also, if a government offers a service like, for example, the 311 hotline, there's just no way that they can, for example, have down times. A service that a government offers has to be available all the time and for everybody. So if your city offers a 311 service and requests get dropped,
05:23
the citizens will complain and you have a problem. So this fail often and fail fast concept, this culture that's very, very common in the startup culture, that's not a thing that a city official and the city government can do. So and finally, to be completely honest,
05:41
governments are not very attractive choices for employment. If you've got a choice to go to a startup or to a Silicon Valley company where they create flying hovercraft cars and have a ball pit in their office, and compare that to a career in public service where you've got interesting procurement processes and stuff like that, most people would
06:03
probably choose the ball pits over the government deployment opportunity. So after the challenges, let's look at some approaches of how to maybe overcome those challenges and let's take a look at the first challenge. So cities are on tight budgets, right?
06:20
If your streets are shabby, if you have to make budget cuts, you do not necessarily think about spending a lot of money on apps and digital services. And this is why it's very important to commemorate what Tim O'Reilly already in 2010 said, that government has to be a platform. He says, government is not like a vending machine.
06:43
This idea that citizens put in taxes and that they get out services is not a really interesting model of how government is ought to relate to its citizens. Instead, when government manages to become a platform, an enabler, that provides information and data that others can build upon and
07:02
create a wide range of tools and services, it's much more efficient and government can focus on the real challenges. So what's really interesting about this is a year ago I was talking to someone from the e-government department in Cologne, and they are doing great work there. And this lady told me a couple of years ago, we thought, okay,
07:23
there's this website of the city of Cologne, and when a citizen needs information, he should visit our website so that we have big numbers of users visiting our website. Why should we offer our data, our information via APIs to others? And then a couple of years later after that, they thought, well,
07:43
it just doesn't make a difference where citizens or where people get the information from. And the important thing is that they get right information. So this about opening up and about being a platform where others can take your information and build services and products around it.
08:00
I don't expect city governments to build 10,000s of apps for each service. So there's this whole community and companies, startups around that reuse data. We see that with transport data a lot, for example. But let's look at the second approach.
08:21
So there's little space for experience, and failure is not an option. Of course, when people rely on your services, like they do with GUS services, fail early and often approach, that's not something that works for you. So instead of this, what could be an approach or option here is to create a space for experience. A lab, for example, we know that from big companies that they have their
08:44
creative spaces, their labs where they try out stuff. Or it doesn't have to be as sophisticated as a lab. You can really start by just getting in touch with innovative spaces, groups in your cities. There's, for example, the KS Computer Club.
09:02
There are groups all around Germany. There's the Knowledge Foundation Network. There are civic hackers like Stefan. Just go out there and check what meetups are in your city, and go and talk to people. And we're going to look at some labs in a couple of minutes. The third approach with the civic tech people and the fact that public
09:23
administration might not be as sexy for them as working for a startup or IT company, I think it's a good start to fix the number one and number two, becoming a platform and then meeting people outside government. That's a first step of solving this problem.
09:40
I assume if you as a city government get more innovative, you attract more innovative people. And a very good practice for that is Helsinki. Helsinki is a prime example. In the last month, the city was awarded the European Commission's Prize for Innovation in Public Administration. And they are doing everything I just mentioned.
10:01
They've been opening up a great amount of data. They are providing it in really good formats so that people, that it's easy to reuse. So third party application developers take the data and turn it into consumer products. And a monthly meetup called Helsinki Loves Developers.
10:21
You can see the sticker in the back. And their city officials and developers have a chance to meet and to exchange about problems, about stuff they're working on. So Helsinki is a really nice example. And we're gonna share this slide deck later on. There's a link to a really good article about what apps actually get developed.
10:41
Well. Yeah, so when you open up cities, integrate government as a platform, and allow for the inclusion of external knowledge, it comes down to collaboration between the government and the people. And that's not so much a new concept. If you think about the first voluntary fire departments back then, back in the days in the 1800s when the idea of public fire service was people
11:02
forming a bucket chain, there were people all over the place, enthusiasts who thought about ways on how to improve this classic fire protection approach. So for example, with new technology like new fangled hand pumps and later on steam engines, and overhauling the idea that fire protection was organized. So these ideas were adopted from one city to another,
11:22
ideas were exchanged, and innovation took place. And if you take this idea and this historical example and adapt it to the challenges we just outlined, it's not so hard to see the parallels. Think about everyday citizens who do have the willingness and the means to make a difference and who want to improve on the current existing ways.
11:41
And give them the opportunity to do so, forming some kind of voluntary tech re-aid, applying new tools and rethinking processes. We've been doing that in Ulm, how many of you do even know where Ulm is? Okay, come there, we've got a very big church and we've got public transport and that's about it. This is one of the examples where it all started for us in Ulm.
12:02
You might have seen those real time transit displays at bus stops that help you find the time to get a dinner before the train arrives or something. In Ulm, we've been having them for seven or eight years, but not at our university, which is a big public transit hub. So about four years ago, a couple of students figured,
12:22
you just need the data, right? You don't need a 200,000 euros public display outside. You just need the data and some way of displaying it. So at the end, the transit authority provided real time transit data. The university provided a monitor that was just hanging around anyway. And what was to become our working group, investor night's work, and
12:43
created what you're seeing right here. And what's been serving the university students ever since. So this is just one example from Ulm and Stefan brought some more. But let's look at a very simplified graphic. So in an ideal world, it would kind of look like this.
13:01
Engaged citizens and city governments, instead of isolation from one another, they have to zone where they connect and interact. And the yellow space, the interaction, is the space where the magic happens. So city government provides data, like in the Ulm example. And people build stuff, like the students in Ulm. And city government promotes apps to develop a better community.
13:23
Or even better, they implement and adapt apps. So let's look at some more best practices of collaboration between government and engaged community, like in New York, for example. Yeah, this is a basic but still cool example. When the city of New York wanted to upgrade or bring their nyc.gov official website into more user-friendly spaces,
13:45
they invited New Yorkers to Hack Day, where they could prototype their ideal city website. And then they took those results, which stemmed from their experience interacting with the old website. And took it as inspiration to upgrade their nyc.gov website.
14:01
This is another example I really like. Code for America borrowed from this classical fire brigade, again, approach, when they created their own brigade program. This is all over the United States. Brigades, teams of volunteers, dedicate their time and their expertise, especially, to advocate for open data and open government. And also making that happen by developing applications that make use of open data.
14:23
So since solutions usually do not really just apply to one city, to just one city, through those brigades' networks, the teams exchange information, what's been working in one city, and find out what's been done elsewhere, and whether they can readapt, redeploy that for their own city, meeting the demands of their own citizens.
14:42
This is just one example here. Originally, this was an app for Chicago where citizens could find out where they could get vaccinated for free, and how to get to those vaccination clinics by public transit. So when a flu outbreak occurred just a couple of months later in Boston, the Chicago flu shot app was just readapted, repurposed, and
15:01
redeployed for the citizens of Boston within a day and a half. They had a public health emergency declared, and within 36 hours, that application had been redistributed, redeployed for Bostonians. This is another example, called for Philadelphia, used a smartphone app that had been used in Atlanta already,
15:22
which allowed riders to track and classify their daily routes. And submit them anonymized form to the Regional Planning Council, which can then use this data to better plan and improve on bike infrastructure. So those were two examples, or like the brigades,
15:43
the tech brigades are outside governments, are community groups that meet on a regular basis, and they also connect to government. But there's this second really nice approach or program of Code for America as well, is the fellowship program. And the fellowship program gets teams, like the startup teams,
16:02
there's a designer, a product manager, a developer. They really get into City Hall, so they work within government for a year. They collaborate on new apps, they foster new approaches, and yeah, tackle problem solving within City Hall.
16:21
And what's really interesting about this is, when they arrive, the challenges are often not predefined. Cuz if a challenge is predefined, you can also go through a procurement process, right? So the really nice thing about this concept of progress is that it's a very open progress. So the teams arrive and what they do is they interview city officials,
16:43
they interview citizens to figure out, okay, where are there problems or challenges that could be solved by us? And what you can see here in the back is the team of Philadelphia, ready to roll up their sleeves. And let's look at Boston now.
17:01
So at the outcome of a fellowship year in Boston in 2011, the fellowship team created this platform. It's a platform for parents and it helps parents to answer the important question of which school is right for my kid. And they asked around in the city and
17:22
they really found that education is a big issue. The process is very fair, the process of school selection, but it's also fairly complicated. So they made this database, this system that enables parents to quickly search for a good school. You have a couple of filters and what's really interesting about this
17:42
example is that it's actually implemented, that it's an ongoing process and it's really used by citizens in Boston to find the right school for their kids. And it's also promoted by the city of Boston. They also had wallpaper campaigns, big posters up in the city to show people,
18:02
okay, this is an example. And if you wanna go to the website, there's always the links in the corner. Check it out, it's a really nice example. And what's cool about Boston is that the city has its own innovation incubator. As all of you know, the MIT is in Boston as well, so there's a lot of knowledge there.
18:21
And via this Boston Mayor's Office of New Urban Mechanics, internal agencies connect with outside entrepreneurs, with academia, and they pilot projects that address the resident needs. So they are collaborating with MIT, with industry, and they already introduced several interfaces and systems.
18:44
For example, an app called Street Bump, look it up, it's a really fun app. And what's critical about this process, there were two researchers from the Berkman Center who studied the New Urban Mechanics Office.
19:01
And they said what's crucial is that innovators, the people who have to take charge, who have to take care about innovation, that they are very close to the mayor's office, that they are not in some department far away. But that things move faster if you have the mayor or another high-level politician as a driver of your process.
19:24
They follow them on Twitter, it's amazing, they just rolled out their fellowships for 2014, and they are doing great work. It's two people who are co-chairs of the office. And okay, so now you might think, okay, all right, after those examples in the US, it only works in the US.
19:41
But let me give you an example that proves this assumption wrong. That's what you can see behind this text, it's a visual from the laboratory in Mexico City. And it's a lab they just started, I think, six months ago. And it's also a mayor's initiative.
20:02
So the mayor decided, okay, he wants this space for innovation for a creative city in his city. And he started the lab. And here's a quote what the mayor says about the lab and its function. So the lab for the city will facilitate interaction between citizens and government to rethink the city together, generating a bank of ideas and
20:24
solutions to build a city that supports and stimulates the imagination, a creative city. So what he did was he invited 19 people, the lab has 19 staff from various fields like artists,
20:41
urban planners, technologists, they all have different backgrounds. And they also have six tech fellows, similar to the fellowships. They work closely together with city departments. And this lab does not only work on code projects or digital projects. They also work on everyday, they walk into the streets and
21:03
ask people, okay, you as a pedestrian in this big city, how do you feel? How could government help you, help to improve your daily life? So they are also showcasing that wide open data is important via the work together with the city departments.
21:23
And they are drafting policy for an open government agenda. So let me show you, okay, the pictures you can see here is the Codico Para La Ciudad program. The team in the background, and they had this massive Hack DF Hack Day, where the city opened up 15 data sets.
21:43
And I think 500 something developers wanted to come to the Hack Day. They unfortunately only had space for 300, but it's amazing. It's a huge city, and a lot of people are interested in helping with their skills to improve things in their city.
22:00
And the lab gives them the chance, yeah, the lab is kind of this interaction space. And just very quickly two examples the fellows in the city have been working on. The one is Info Mercado, they are releasing the apps in one month and they're going to present it to the mayor. So Info Mercado crowdsources information about Mercados in Mexico City and
22:24
helps the government to collect this information. Cuz in such a big city it's sometimes difficult to keep track or there's a lot of data and information the government just doesn't have. And the second app, as you can see here, are the famous Mexico City caps.
22:40
And as some of you might know, it's always a bit tricky as a tourist to figure out whether a cap is official or not. So they built this really lightweight app that quickly tells you whether a cap is official or if it's an illegal cap. So just two very small approaches that kind of introduce this idea of open data,
23:03
of civic tech to the different city departments, cuz they work together very closely with the fellows. Well, so the examples, Mexico City, now back to Ulm. Back to Ulm. So this doesn't work only in the United States and Mexico, but also in Ulm.
23:21
And let me tell you a bit about how we approach this and what you could maybe pick up and adopt for your city if you want to engage civic tech there, please do. The last two years, we held annual bar camps. You see a picture of one of them here. We do not have 300 people because Ulm is marginally smaller than Mexico City. But we were able to connect interested citizens, researchers, and government officials.
23:41
Also back then, the city did not have a dedicated open data government website yet. So after having established contact to the city officials and having them release data sets as open data, we published it on our website, just as an intermediary fix, as raw downloads and through an API. Just not as a permanent solution that we're gonna have up and
24:02
running for all time, but just as an intermediary fix until the city had an official open data web portal, which they have by now. Another quick fix we did. This is similar to the Boston School project, just with a slightly worse user interface.
24:20
The official tool for checking free kindergarten spots is just a glorified list, more or less. So if you do not know that is in which is down there in the bus stops only five times a day, you'd probably sign up your kid for that and then have trouble. So this map here was our first step at creating a more user friendly overview.
24:44
And we hope we will be able to reintegrate that into the official kindergarten website to make this a lasting improvement. It's not just a hack, but expands on the official service by the city. So what you can do is you can click on, okay, your kid is in this and
25:00
that age group. And then it filters you, okay, where are spots for your kid available? So the red crosses show that there's no free. Yeah, that you cannot, that they closed, that it's not open for your kid. And the green things, you can click and
25:21
it directs you to the contact form of the kindergarten. I figure it's the same everywhere in Germany, that the waiting lists are overbooked for ages if you need a kindergarten spot. To the right is Bavaria, this is uncharted territorial. As of yet, we're working on that. So this map is an example for the ghost you can achieve rather quickly.
25:42
This hasn't been a large scale project. It was prototyped during open data day. And one more thing that I'd recommend for city governments everywhere, our administration contact persons are officially allowed to join us on our meetings, which are usually on the weekends or during weekday evenings. And they're allowed to do so while being on the clock.
26:01
So this makes for a very fast exchange. We've been able to get information and feedback very fast and in person, allowing us to develop and publish much faster than if we had to email back and forth through web formulas or whatever. And of course, we never quite left public transit. After we showed officials what could be possible through this experimental map,
26:24
the city's transit authority was willing to let us help them create a process that allowed them to publish their schedule as open data. So examples like this here, this is a live map more or less that shows you where the bus is running. Actually, we have more buses than that. But examples like this can often serve as door openers to the administration,
26:44
allowing them to better grasp the implication of what is possible if they open up data and implement government as a platform. So the last couple of slides, so what do those examples show us? What they show us is that collaboration is key. If this key to map is somewhere around the Internet and
27:03
no one knows about it, it doesn't help the citizens of the city. So it's important that the different stakeholders collaborate, that government and government officials or people that work in the public administration, that they talk about the issues, the problems they are focusing on, and that they share insights and
27:21
give this information to civic hacker community, for example, who builds concepts and prototypes like the key to map or the real time map. And what they do is they reuse data. So they make use of data the city provides. So it's also very important that cities open up and
27:40
that they provide resources for civic hackers. And there's also startups and companies that's important in this process. Because there is this point when you develop an app, it's fun in the beginning. So the civic hackers, most of them are volunteers, it's fun in the beginning. But then if you really have to implement it into the city's systems,
28:00
it kind of gets work. So it's really important to also have startups and companies and people who get paid on board to implement and productize apps from the community. So yeah, I really believe that via this collaboration, better civic tools could be provided. Also when it comes to data, like sometimes when cities provide data,
28:22
it's hard to use for developers cuz they do not have an API yet or it's not in the right format. So that's something you can easily solve by getting in touch and by talking to one another. And there's already a couple of cities in Germany where this is happening. In Ulm, for example, in Cologne, in Berlin,
28:42
we are in touch with the city of Berlin and officials from there. So this collaboration and getting in touch and talking to each other is very important. And we really like this concept of communities connecting tech communities all over Germany. So that's why the Open Knowledge Foundation started a program
29:00
in February called Code for Germany, where, yeah, it's a network of civic developers, of techies, designers, people interested in open data. And it's not a virtual network at all. It's actually a network of, right now, 11 open knowledge labs all around,
29:22
all across Germany, and two more are incubating. So I'm sure there's a lab in the city near you. They meet on a regular basis. They work on great apps. It's not always the biggest, the super high-scale projects, but very easy kind of small-scale quick wins.
29:44
And if you check the Code for Germany website, you can also see on what the different labs are working on. And yeah, you can contribute via GitHub. Yeah, find a lab near you and join. And yeah, what more can I say?
30:01
Let's roll up our sleeves and get going. Thank you very much.