By David W. Burns
July 2, 2012

The first-ever in person meeting of The U.S. Conference of Mayors Technology and Innovation Task Force took place during the 80th Annual Meeting in Orlando June 14 to a standing-room only audience of mayors, city officials, business leaders, and other partners. Technology and Innovation Task Force Chair San Francisco Mayor Edwin M. Lee was joined by the White House's Chris Vein, Code for America Founder and Executive Director Jennifer Pahlka, and former U.S. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra.

"Our goal in the Task Force is to demonstrate how cities can support the growth of new economy jobs and foster innovation in local governments through technology and transparency," remarked Lee. "Technology and new economy companies and the people behind them are the engines of innovation and job creation and, as cities, we must support policies that foster their growth and ensure our residents are educated and prepared for the 21st century economy. Cities must be laboratories for innovation across the nation to create new jobs, improve government transparency and efficiency and build new public-private partnerships."

With that guiding focus behind the forum and task force, Vein then announced with Lee the Open Government Partnership Pledge, in which mayors join the partnership as active and committed partners to help build an ecosystem that will help cities advance and prioritize innovation to improve government.

Vein said, "[We want] to build a national network of cities who are championing innovation in our cities and most importantly, as a way to leverage all those products and services for other cities so we aren't reinventing the wheel in each city."

Pahlka, who affectionately refers to her organization Code for America as a "peace corps for geeks," shared with mayors how part of innovation is that cities "…don't necessarily need more technology, you need a different culture around technology." The idea is that smaller projects can drive bigger changes and they don't always need a big, multi-million dollar investment. An example is a project in Boston where a web app was developed to help parents find the right public school for their child, which replaced a 28-page brochure.

The panel was concluded with Chopra, who tied together the conversation and challenged mayors to commit to the Open Government Partnership Pledge. "Every one of you have Tony Websters in your community," remarked Chopra, referring to a programmer in San Francisco who built an app that helps veterans find jobs by connecting multiple government databases, all built in a matter of hours. The idea is that engaging with citizens, tapping this resource, and creating buy-in from the community is what it takes to start the innovation in cities.

To sign on to the Open Government Partnership Pledge or to see slides of each of the presentations, visit the website http://www.usmayors.org/innovation.