Civic Hack Night & Map Night featuring the "Democracy Machine"

GUEST LECTURE
Are you fatigued by fake news, Facebook and other facets of our addictive, hyper-polarized online spaces? Are you ready to imagine a bigger, brighter future for digital democracy? Come hear our special guest lecture on the Democracy Machine, by Professor John Gastil, a leading scholar on public deliberation and digital engagement.

The concept of the Democracy Machine is to harness the energy of our online civic commons to generate the empowered deliberation and public legitimacy that a healthy democracy needs. The Machine is an integrated platform that draws people into the civic sphere, encourages sustained engagement, influences government decision-making, and creates feedback loops that helps officials and citizens track progress together as they continuously turn the policymaking crank. The Democracy Machine could be just what we need to harmonize civic leaders, vocal and marginalized citizens, and government. Professor Gastil will speak for 15 minutes starting at 6:45pm, and will be stick around for questions until 7:30pm.

WHO WE ARE
Code for San José is a volunteer organization made up of makers, designers, developers, and subject matter experts who come together to use tech to solve civic problems.

All are welcome! Technical skills are not required to contribute.

We hold Civic Hack Nights twice a month where members use their skills to make San José, and the South Bay, a better place.

Once a month we feature Map night! Getting the local OSM community together to talk about Map editing projects.

Food will be provided thanks to our generous sponsor Microsoft. Bring your ideas, enthusiasm, and if you can, a laptop.

Current projects for joining ( https://docs.google.com/document/d/1x89c27Mb8ptTZBXXuSutzRqk43GOoGQOvBuu06tfKIk )

[Map of where to park and where we meet ( https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxCGb2OaeO5uSHpoM19tOHN4M2dXbUZob3QweVFFeXM1N3BR/view?usp=sharing )]

AGENDA:
• 6:30 - 6:45 PM: Mingling, chatting, food provided
• 6:45 - 7:15 PM: Welcome & Guest Lecture
• 7:15 - 8:45 PM: Work on projects in teams or as individuals
• 8:45 - 9:00 PM: Share progress with group and wrap-up

WHAT CODE FOR SAN JOSE - AND ISN'T:

Code for San José is a place where people gather to work on open-source projects that benefit our community

Code for San José isn't:

• an organization that teaches people how to code
• always prepared to pair you with a project on day one. BEFORE THE MEETING:
• Check out our updated list of projects (http://www.codeforsanjose.com/docs/projects/) and their needs.
• Join the slack channel (https://slackin-c4sj.herokuapp.com/) and check out our github (http://github.com/codeforsanjose).

• Read our Code of Conduct (http://www.codeforsanjose.com/codeofconduct.html)

At your first meeting, we'll give you an overview of the organization and tell you about on-going projects some members are leading.

A laptop, if you have one. Also, a notebook and paper/pen are always useful!