Civic Tech and Design Timeline

By Cyd Harrell and Collaborators

Read this article for the background

1888
US Census holds competition for more a more efficient means of tabulating data.
The company that will become IBM wins and analog computers are utilized in the next iteration of the census
1996
Baltimore introduces 311.
1998
Gov Works Launches.
2000
Gov Works Shuts down. Link
2000
Butterfly ballot disaster Link
Dana Chisnell suits up
2003
NYC implements 311 as the "Yahoo for city services."
2005 June
Google Maps and API launches, allowing free/easy online mapping of data for the first time, inspiring residents to go look for data to map and build public tools.
2005 June
Chicago Crime and Louisville Crime Lab launch.
2006
Usability in Civic Life ramps up as a project of the Usability Professionals Association. Small team makes a lightweight usability testing kit for local election officials to test ballots.
2007
Social Innovation Camp projects use open data scraped from websites etc.
2007
MySociety's FixMyStreet launch. Link
2007
Tim O'Reilly & Lawrence Lessig host meeting to establish public data principles & lobby presidential candidates to adopt them.
Open data reverses the idea of FOIA laws, which are older - those say the public has the right to request information from government; open data says government data should be public by default. Machine readable data becomes increasingly important.
2007
Design for Democracy project of AIGA delivers election design best practices.
2008 January
EveryBlock launches, needs city data.
2008
Apps for Democracy contest with then DC CTO Vivek Kundra providing a bunch of data; became the first national CIO, with Aneesh Chopra as first national CTO.
2009 January
Barack Obama takes office, signs open data memorandum immediately.
2009 May
Data.gov launches - the nation's open data site.
2009
NYC launches BigApps. Link
2009
Memphis, Portland, & SF sign first municipal open data policies.
2009
H1N1 & Cyd’s first civic tech project w/Bolt Peters & Stanford.
2009
Jess McMullin coins Citizen Experience, quits private sector consulting & goes public.
2009
GSA creates Office of Citizen Services & Innovative Technology.
OCSIT, now as of 2016 called the Office of Products and Programs, part of the Technology Transformation Service
2010
US Congress creates Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
2010 Late
GSA First Fridays begin in DC.
2010
Code for America (CfA) founded.
2010
Boston’s Office of New Urban Mechanics founded.
2010
Martha Lane Fox's Revolution Not Evolution, that paved the way for Gov.uk. Link
2011
First CfA fellows in the field.
2011
The New York City Transparency Working group is formed to pass NYC's open data law. Link
2011
Open Government Partnership is launched. Link
2011 April
Government Digital Service (GDS) launches in the UK in response to a Healthcare.gov-level mess.
2011 June
CityCamp SF (huge session on UX 101 for govies).
2011 June
Louisville’s Office of Civic Innovation founded.
2011 Summer
Gray Area hosted the Summer of Smart, where four civic hackathon teams presented to SF mayoral candidates. Link
2011 July
Cyd’s first civic design article in UX Mag. Link
2012 January
San Francisco’s Office of Civic Innovation founded.
2012 March
In March, NYC passes its open data law making it the first city in the nation to have a legislatively binding open data law. Link
2012
Kickstarter for Field Guides to Ensuring Voter Intent.
2012
GDS Design Principles launch in Alpha.
2012
Gov.UK launches.
2012
First ChiHackNight - it’s still running! Link
2012
CFPB tests new mortgage disclosures.
2012
Elizabeth Buie and Diane Murray publish Usability in Government Systems. Link
2012
First class of Presidential Innovation Fellows.
2012 October
First CfA Brigades launched at Summit.
2013
UK ADRN Launches. Link
2013 April
Gov.UK wins Design of the Year. Link
2013 Summer
First National Day of Civic Hacking.
2013 Summer
Jennifer Pahlka becomes Deputy CTO of the US.
2013 September
Center for Civic Design founded. Link
2013 October
Failed launch of Healthcare.gov.
This was NOT a design failure interestingly.
2014
GovTech Fund opens for business.
2014
CfA’s Digital Front Door project begins.
2014 July
Laurenellen McCann publishes manifesto on need to Build With, Not For. Link
2014 August
United States Digital Service (USDS) launches (18F also launched 2014).
2015
CFPB mortgage disclosure forms become regulation
2016
Field Guides to Ensuring Voter Intent in the Cooper Hewitt Museum. Link
2016
California Data Collaborative launches. Link
2016 October
CfA launches elected National Advisory Council.
2016
US Web Design Standards alpha.
2016
California enacts "Open and Transparent Water Data Act."
2017
US Web Design Standards 1.0
2017 October
First CfA Brigades Congress - Philadelphia
2018
CfA launches Community Fellowship, placing fellowship in local Brigades.
2018
California enacts legislation to "make water conservation a way of life" -- takes historic amount of data.
2018
Third annual water data summit. Link
2018 October
Second CfA Brigades Congress - Charlotte