To generate interest and seek community involvement, we announced the City of Austin's latest round of open government activities at Open Austin's monthly Open Gov & Civic Tech meet-up on Monday, Feb. 22.
Chief Innovation Officer Kerry O'Connor introduced the Open Government Partnership (OGP) Subnational Pilot Program and spoke about how Open Austin can help secure a place for Austin and play an active role in the pilot program. This new pilot program is designed to proactively involve subnational governments in the efforts to promote transparency, empower citizens, fight corruption and harness new technologies to strengthen governance.
After the OGP announcement, I.T. Corporate Manager Matthew Esquibel discussed the various Open Data Initiative items to be addressed over the next 90 days:
- Open Data Inventory
- Open Data Request Workflow
- U.S. Open Data Census
- Open Data Portal Redesign
- Open Performance Dashboard
Janette Milan with the Communications and Technology Department then gave a brief update on the redesign of the Open Data Portal and demonstrated our work-in-progress alpha site, which showcases an upgraded user interface and reorganized content. The goals of the redesign are to enhance the look and feel of the portal making it more modern and on par with other government data portals, as well as improve user access to related key content.
Over the coming weeks, the City will continue to reach out to and inform the citizen volunteer group on the best way to submit their ideas and feedback in order to help Austin's Open Data Initiative move forward.
To find out more about the OGP Subnational Pilot Program, visit: http://www.opengovpartnership.org/how-it-works/subnational-government-pilot-program