Explore/discuss the future of Chicago's DoIT (Department of Innovation and Technology)

easherma commented 4 years ago

About the group

If you haven't heard, the Lightfoot administration recently announced that it intends to merge the city's Department of Innovation and Technology with the Department of Fleet and Facility Management.

This breakout group is to discuss this news, learn more about what it means, and conduct some research and potential next steps if you are interested in providing feedback to the mayor and city council about this potential move.

Note that any output from this group will not be considered representative of an opinion of Chi Hack Night as a whole, but just of the individual members of this breakout group who choose to participate.

Group leaders

Eric Sherman (@easherma on Slack) Derek Eder(@derekeder on Slack)

Who we're looking for

No coding required!

We are looking for people to help with:

Research
Writing
Potential organization/advocacy work
Being able/willing to sign up to speak during the city council's pubic comment period on October 23rd

easherma commented 4 years ago

It's very difficult to find any official information about this merger. It's apparently going to be considered at the City Council meeting, but its hard to find any info about it on the Agenda or Legislative docket: https://chicityclerk.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/ChicagoCouncilAgenda_2019-10-16_updated.pdf https://chicago.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=705121&GUID=A0484F31-2678-439D-B564-22A8320A5579&Options=&Search=

easherma commented 4 years ago

Alternative suggested by members: F2M improvement should be a project FOR DoIT, and not require a merger.

easherma commented 4 years ago

Chicago did used to have an innovation fellowship office in the Mayor...but what did they accomplish?

easherma commented 4 years ago

Ultimate goal is to pause the merger; more time to propose.

We're going to two main things:

Write an advisory memo urging city council and mayor to slow down this merge process and make room for an advisory council to help guide the city in its efforts to improve tech services
Formulate 1-3 sentences that constituents can use to share with their alderman and the mayor, whether by social media, in person, by phone, or email.

DoIT should already be accomplishing these things as a department, how does merging the teams together make that happen? What is the proof/evidence?

derekeder commented 4 years ago

This group was active for a few weeks. Closing.

chihacknight / breakout-groups