Summit Preview: Breakout Tracks and Mainstage

Code for America Summit 2023 is just one month away, and we’re so excited to welcome the civic tech community to our annual event for networking, idea sharing, and connectivity!

As we finalize our Summit preparations, we’re sharing a preview of some of the most exciting content offered this year. Breakout sessions are split into four tracks: Service Design + Delivery, People Power + Community, Policy + Administration, and Operations + Management. Here’s a look at what you can expect in each one:

Service Design + Delivery is all about getting the implementation of policy right. The thoughtful design around how services are delivered to the public is of critical importance, and sessions in this track will illuminate best practices for ensuring that those who need services can find and receive them without significant burdens. Attendees will be able to explore sessions like “Making it easy to create digital forms for government,” run by members of the UK Government Digital Service, which will focus on how to make forms more accessible, easier to use, quicker to process, and mobile-friendly.

People Power + Community includes sessions that are all about honoring the roots of civic tech as a community-centered practice. Check out sessions like “Beyond heroics: Burnout in public interest tech and what we can do about it,” a panel presentation with members of the U.S. Digital Response, New America’s New Practice Lab, and Bloomworks that takes on the question: How do we mature into a field where people can spend an entire career?

Policy + Administration focuses on how to bring policy creation up to speed with technical tools, planning for its eventual implementation and service design from the beginning. There will be sessions like “Disappear administrative burdens for healthcare renewals with this one weird trick,” presented by folks from Code for America, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and a county program manager responsible for implementing healthcare programs on the ground. You can find out more about this session from a recent interview with Shalaka Gole, one of the presenters.

Operations + Management is about how the work gets done, day in and day out. Get ready to dive deep into niche topics like the ones in “Ending the blame game: How governments and technology vendors can leverage procurement to co-create solutions and deliver better outcomes,” which will bring together suppliers, government workers, and tech procurement intermediaries together to unpack pain points in the procurement process.

This year, we’re also bringing back lightning talks, which are five-minute overviews of some exciting work happening in civic tech. Check out sessions like “Becoming a human-centered organization for your employees” or “What’s the product? Product management dos and don’ts for government.”

You can start planning your Summit experience and explore all breakout sessions and lightning talks on the Summit site!

Summit is about our entire community, so we also dedicate a portion of the conference to bringing all attendees together in one space for inspiration. We’re excited to welcome an extraordinary slate of speakers to our Mainstage this year for conversations that will take on some of the most pressing issues in civic tech and government today. Our panels will discuss government innovation and modernization, the power of analytics and feedback in an increasingly data-driven world, and how public servants, technologists, and civic leaders can come together to show what’s possible for the future. Here’s a sneak peek at some of the faces you’ll see on stage this year!

Check out Poppy MacDonald’s interview in our Leading the Field series—where civic tech and government leaders tell us about their career paths, passions, and visions for the future of the field.

We can’t wait to welcome you (or welcome you back!) to Summit and hear your ideas about how we can evolve as a civic tech community to be stronger, more resilient in the face of tough challenges, and prepared to roll up our sleeves and do the necessary work of making government work more equitably for everyone.

Tickets for Summit are still on sale! Grab yours today and join us for Code for America Summit 2023 from May 16-17 in Washington, D.C.