A very, very engaging and enlightening partner dialogue in class, and I must say that I am very appreciative of John Paul Farmer and Matt Stempeck from Microsoft NY in their participating with us throughout this entire process so far. To be honest I expected the dialogue to be fairly intense, that Matt and John would be addressing some compelling questions from not only our group, but from our classmates, guests, and faculty. I certainly was not disappointed.
Matt and John did well to outline, and go into some depth, the guiding philosophies behind what it is that Microsoft Civic Tech is all about, describing the initiative as giving capacity to communities via technology, and that there was potential for improved democracy through the use of applied technologies in communities. John and Matt described their general research interests as threefold: Open Data, 21st Century Jobs, and Resilient Communities, and that one of the goals of Microsoft’s involvement within these interests was to empower communities through technology, while assisting in co-designing with communities to solve shared problems in a local way. John described a type of inter-ecosystem feedback loop developing between local government and communities as enabled by technology, and that their hope was that Microsoft Civic Tech’s research interests would assist in creating and sustaining this loop.
Among the many interesting points and topics discussed, an excellent question was posed regarding what type of government was Microsoft seeking to create this feedback loop between. John answered that, given the polarised nature of government today, solving community issues was not about left versus right wing politics, but rather about open or closed culture, that Microsoft was seeking to work in a more open way, with open data and openly within communities.
Thanks again to John Paul Farmer and Matt Stempeck for a wonderful discussion! I feel that going forward, the team has some very interesting insight to take into next week’s meetings with Ben from IQUANT NY, Noel from Beta NYC, and civic innovation fellow Laurenellen McCann. More thanks are due here to Matt and John for arranging these meetings!
