Last Friday, the CfA Philadelphia team hosted a DataCamp at Azavea with the goal of bringing together local officials and coders to create “demoable” projects by the end of the day. Mark Headd, an area web developer, was in attendance, and described what he saw — “kick start[ing] civic coding” — as the “CfA effect”:
“What I was most impressed with was the ability of this event to highlight to those that were there what is truly possible when government data is open to and usable by developers. It provided an object lesson for all those there in the true potential of civic hacking…
Having the Code for America fellows in Philadelphia, and having them essentially kick start civic coding using city data, has accelerated the awareness of what is possible. I think people would have achieved the awareness that was realized yesterday eventually, but the CfA fellows got people there sooner.
I call it “the CfA Effect.” It was pretty cool to see first hand.”
