OpenMaine Monthly Meetup @ Portland Webworks

Note: We will meet on Thursday, 9/19, not Saturday 9/21 as previously planned. (September 21 is the Code for America National Day of Action, with a focus on helping with the criminal record clearance process. However, we've determined that there is no process in Maine that we can help people with. So we will join Code for America in spirit, but will hold our usual Thursday evening meeting.)

Our main project lately is to develop a visualization for campaign finance data, so this will be the primary activity of the evening, although as always members are welcome to work on a project of their choosing. We have tasks for both coders and noncoders, so please join us!

Schedule:
6:00-6:15: welcomes, introductions, and food
6:15-6:45: presentation and discussion about OpenMaine projects
6:45-7:00: updates from project groups
7:00-9:00: break into project groups

• What we'll do
Once a month we gather to discuss and build civic technology at Peloton Labs.

What is civic technology?
Civic technology is the practice of applying rapid prototyping and user centered design to solve civic problems such as voting, budgeting, parking, transit, community engagement, etc., (to name just a few). Civic technologists believe that government services can be efficient, equitable, and open.

Everyone is welcome from all backgrounds and skill levels. We suggest bringing a laptop if you think you'd like to dive in on a project. We share what we are working on at the beginning of each Meetup and introduce all attendees to our Code of Conduct and meeting style. We then have a short featured speaker and a discussion. Project teams are invited to work after the featured speaker, if they like.

Food? Yes. We will provide vegetarian and non-veg food. You are more than welcome to bring snacks to share.

So, come hack your city! Everyone is welcome.

• What to bring
laptops are encouraged but not required

• Important to know
We are building our new website: http://openmaine.org
From there, you can find info to sign up with us on Slack, follow us on Facebook and Twitter, and get to our GitHub repository.

Have you learned about the Code for America brigade program? check out this video summary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYzMl_HnEZU