The City of Raleigh, N.C. has a long history of engaged and well-educated citizens, transparent governance, and economic performance.  As a neighbor of the Research Triangle Park, Raleigh has also become a hotbed of technology companies like Red Hat and SAS, with major offices of companies like Cisco, IBM, NetApp, EMC, and others nearby.

Over the past year, momentum has been growing in Raleigh to understand and realize how the intersection of open source software, open government data, disruptive web and mobile technologies, and civic-minded technology-savvy citizens can transform the way citizens interact with their governments and each other.

Here are a few examples:

1. In June 2011, a group of citizens and city staff led the first CityCamp Raleigh weekend unconference, which has spawned several meetups and a project called TriangleWiki – a citizen-led initiative that is using an open source platform to document the Triangle area.
2. The City of Raleigh created a program called Raleigh Connected that seeks to improve access to broadband in our community as well as promote technology and leadership education through a youth development program called Digital Connectors.
3. A collection of leaders from NC State University, various local economic development organizations and city officials recently kicked off a campaign to better support the development of the entrepreneurial community in the city – called Innovate Raleigh.
4. Just this month, the Raleigh City Council passed a resolution that calls for a policy that encourages open source software and open data formats as well as establishing an open data catalog.

We believe the Code for America Fellowship program can help accelerate this momentum in several ways.

First, we believe Code for America can provide innovative and concrete examples of what happens when you combine the use of open government data, web and mobile technology, and engaged citizens through the development and implementation of applications by the Code for America fellows.

Second, we believe Code for America can help foster the local entrepreneurial community and impact economic development by bringing technological innovation to civic activities through both the Fellowship program and the Code for America Accelerator program.

Third, we believe Code for America fellows can inspire and encourage our city staff to continue to find ways to bring innovation to their daily work for years to come after the fellowship program has ended.

And fourth, we believe Code for America can help develop the next generation of civic hackers by intersecting with existing youth development programs and providing mentorship opportunities to expose youth to what it means to be civically engaged and have a career path enabled by technological proficiency.

That’s why the City of Raleigh has applied for the 2013 Code for America Fellowship program.  We are hopeful that we will be selected by Code for America and we’ll be working hard over the next several months to solidify funding so we can make this a reality for Raleigh in 2013.