We are hosting a hackathon - Here's why

On August 24-25, we are hosting what we think is Canada’s first foreign aid data focused hackathon (please be in touch if we are incorrect!). Thirty people will be split into six teams, each of whom will work together to tackle six separate problems/projects using Canada’s foreign aid data as the primary source of data. These projects will come from the international development sector through two ways: four of the projects are coming directly from organizations and individuals we have approached; the final two are coming from an open ask to the sector (if you are interested, submit here: http://citizen-attache.github.io/ ).

This event is important and valuable for a number of reasons:

1. There needs to be more time and energy invested in analyzing and using the data that has been published.

Aid data that is shared has the potential to increase the effectiveness of development assistance. As background: transparent aid flows have the potential to reduce corruption by tracking funds up and down the donor-recipient chain, ensuring the funds are getting to those that are supposed to receive them; open data can increase effectiveness by allowing for coordination across donors and for planning within recipient governments; it can help Canadians and recipient country citizens better understand aid efforts; etc.

We hope this hackathon will be a strong investment in translating Canadian aid data into useful information and insight, and that it will lead to further time and energy invested in this.

2. We need better ways for citizens, organizations and governments to collaborate: The international development sector is too caught up in ‘educating Canadians about global issues’ as the main interaction point (in addition to fundraising) between non-governmental organizations (NGOs), government and Canadians. This work is important, but I believe it is too narrow and doesn’t give Canadians the credit they deserve. I believe that there is a ton of value that can be captured by changing the way by which Canadians engage with NGOs and government in the international development sector.

The hackathon is one very interesting and potentially effective medium where we tap into a very specific skill set of a group of Canadians that aren’t regularly, or at all, tied into the development sector. This contributes to a shift from NGOs and government ‘engaging’ Canadians, to a situation where the NGOs-government-citizens collaborate, bringing their respective skill sets and assets to bear on important problems.

3. Experimentation: this is very tied to the above two reasons, but is important enough to be a distinct point. 

We need more experimentation that leads to both success and failure, in the development sector and in the democratic renewal-citizen engagement space. A hackathon gives us the opportunity to experiment with the data, experiment with team/group composition working on projects, and gives us an opportunity to try a new way of interaction between government, NGOs, and Canadians.

This is the rationale that has motivated us to organize this event. Immediately below, I’ve also shared the goals (in brief) of the event.

As further background on the event, we have multiple goals:

a.To enable innovation and experimentation using Canadian aid data.

b.To test a new way of engaging Canadians in the development sector.

c.To generate feedback and ideas to improve the quality and increase the quantity of the data published by the federal government – a feedback loop of sorts.

d.To create tools/apps/analysis that extract value from the data.

e.To contribute to the formation of a community of people who are interested in the potential of open data in the international development sector. We hope that this will generate excitement that will lead to much more interesting work happening in this area in Canada.

If you are interested in attending, please be in touch. I can be reached at ianfroude@ewb.ca The event information is available here: http://citizen-attache.github.io/

Please consider submitting project ideas for the hackathon here: http://bit.ly/1bmwonD 

Teams, millenials and a virtual foreign service - FedCloud - The Future of federal work

As part of thinking through the pieces of one of the projects I am working on (described at bottom), I recently read a paper from Deloitte, Fed Cloud: The future of federal work. In the paper, Deloitte is proposing that the federal government set up three types of government bodies: thin agencies (which are much smaller than today's agencies) have employees that fall into two categories, mission specialists and front line workers; shared services, so that agencies can share back-office support; and thirdly, a problem and project focused mass of individuals called Fed Cloud. Because the FedCloud is the most interesting part, I will pull in some of the papers text on it:

"Fed Cloud: 'a new model for government based on team collaboration, whereby workforce resources can be surged to provide services to Federal agencies on-demand;" 

(essentially a mass of individuals that you move around project to project as the demand changes, forming teams, dismantling teams, etc.)

"the Fed Cloud could become a new pillar of the federal government, comprising permanent employees who undertake a wide variety of creative, problem-focused work. As needed, a Fed Cloud model also can take advantage of the efforts of those outside the federal government, including private citizens looking for extra part-time work, full-time contractors and individual consultants. 

Cloud workers would vary in background and expertise, but would exhibit traits of 'free agent' workers - self-sufficient, self-motivating employees who exhibit strong loyalty to teams, colleagues and clients."

I agree with them that there is a lot of potential, but I would also like to share several pieces that I felt were missing.

• The teams within the Fed Cloud would be highly transient - teams would be short-lived as projects don't last very long and resources are reallocated to other projects. This does take advantage of individuals need for change, but I question the lack of deep relationships within teams that are lost as individuals shift from project to project often, rather than working with each other over a long-period of time.
• Similar to this, they also don't touch on the need to ensure that teams have the ability to go through their regular form-norm-storm-adjourn cycle. In many cases we will need real teams because of the type of work we need from these groups (as compared to much more narrowly focused 'working-groups'). I wonder what length of time will be needed for this team forming process to occur, and whether the time lost associated with this forming process, occurring again and again as projects change, will be a significant loss in productivity.
• They over emphasized the value that millenials put on the ability to change roles often, versus the value they put on job security and compensation. A millenials desire to change roles often will still be constrained by the need for job security and compensation, and this will need to be taken into account. The nature of many millenials (which I am one) to need to be transient was taken as an assumed fact, and a strong one at that, and I am not sure this is a good design assumption.
• My simple point is: millenials prioritize transiency now, but not to such a degree that job security and compensation don't matter. I also speculate on whether there will actually be a pendulum swing back towards prioritizing job security and compensation, as millenials enter their mid-late thirties and if they haven't already, start families.

I am very interested in the potential of a Fed Cloud sort of structure, or mode of operating, and I only share the two points above to add thinking to this. Our government institutions need to evolve to meet the new demands, and we are only at the early stages this evolution - lots of innovation and experimentation in this space is needed. Which is exactly why I was excited to see that they highlight the Virtual Student Foreign Service (VSFS) that the US State Department currently leads.

The VSFS is a program where US based students volunteer over their academic year. They get the opportunity to engage with US Embassies and other missions abroad, while the foreign offices get great minds and skills to work with them on projects. These are also lower cost than typical in-country internships, which require travel, office space, and accommodations. There are currently two types of engagement in this program, the first are placements where a participant is connected directly with a foreign office and volunteers for 5-10 hours a week over a 8 month period; the second is micro-tasking, where foreign officers put small projects (less than four hours work required) in an online system where pre-screened and qualified students are signed up. The students then execute on these activities within their busy schedules. 

The VSFS program gives a great opportunity to learn and test these methods in a complex federal government institution, so that we evolve towards a Fed Cloud type model of government. 

One of the projects I am trying to push forward is the replication of the VSFS program for Canada's foreign offices. Trialing this in Canada, while learning through the State Departments program, will help us get closer to a more nimble, more effective government. Of course, there is a long ways to go, and in addition to the value in experimenting and learning, this program is also great in and of itself. As I mentioned, it gives students the opportunity to contribute to foreign missions and provides cost-effective resources, new ideas, and a great talent pipeline to our foreign affairs institutions.

The paper can be found here: http://www.deloitte.com/assets/Dcom-UnitedStates/Local%20Assets/Documents/Federal/us_fed_The_Future_of_Federal_Work_092011.pdf