City Camp Oakland builds partnerships between activists, techies and the City

In spite of glorious sunny weather and a plethora of Super Bowl events, more than 100 citizens and city staff gathered at City Hall on February 6th to champion ways to use digital technology to solve many of Oakland’s problems and to increase openness and transparency in government. This was the fourth such gathering over five years, bringing together tech-savvy developers with activists and “entrepreneurial bureaucrats” in what organizers describe as an audience driven “UnConference” format.  That is, attendees freely proposed topics for workshops and then scheduled the most popular ones. Mayor Libby Shaaf opened the event, noting she was one of the folks who had been to all four City Camps, including the first, called Code4Oakland.  “I  still have that great t-shirt,” she said. The Mayor has been involved in promoting Oakland as a new Technology center since she served on the city council. She has helped promote Open Data policies which liberate city databases for use by community groups  and civic tech activists, many who volunteer to work with OpenOakland.org, the organizing group behind the last three City Camps and other community tech events. Mayor Schaaf also said addressing the Digital Divide in Oakland is crucial, but now more possible.  Until recently the influx of new tech firms had made differences more dramatic between the newer tech workers and older residents. “Now we see more people with access to smart phones…” Schaaf explained,  She also highlighted the decades of work by Oakland Technology Exchange West (OTX West) and its program to provide thousands of recycled computers to low-income families in Oakland. “How can we move from the Digital divide to the Digital Bridge…?”, she asked. “How can we harness tech and use it to drive people together, toward opportunities, towards better access….?” Mayor Schaaf said she had four priorities she wanted the attendees to discuss and “hack on”  : The need for ethnic diversity in the Tech industry was the topic of the second keynote speaker, Erica Joy Baker, a former Google employee who now works at Slack in San Francisco.  “Diversity… is super important, especially in the City of Oakland, which is, reportedly, the most diverse city in the United States,” she said. Baker talked about the lack of data about diversity until recently.  She said most companies feared criticism and lawsuits because of their lack of diversity. “It turns out fear is a liar, most times, because fear will have you thinking things that are not true,” she said. She pointed out the recent sharing of hiring data by large tech firms has resulted in a greater focus on diversity in the hiring of new tech workers because the numbers show a marked lack of diversity. “With this increase in transparency, there is an increase in action [with] people starting lots of programs to improve diversity and inclusion at their companies,” Baker said.