This opportunity was shared with us by our friends at Coding It Forward.
OVERVIEW
The Civic Innovation Corps is a first-of-its-kind, 10-week summer internship program mobilizing the next generation of technologists to create civic impact in state and local governments across the United States. In its inaugural year, the Corps placed 55 Civic Innovation Corps Fellows in 3 states and 6 cities. Fellows are recruited to work across four main project areas: software engineering, data, product management, and design.
The 2022 program will be fully remote, with the exception of one week, which will be in-person to facilitate community amongst Corps members. Partners will not be required to make a financial contribution to host a Fellow in 2022, but are expected to engage in conversations with Coding it Forward about program sustainability over the course of 2022.
Apply Now!
HOST OFFICE CRITERIA
We’ve found that teams with the following qualities are most successful in hosting Fellows:
- High impact positions: Host office teams have concrete position descriptions that match the technical rigor of the applicant pool, are tightly scoped around a specific business need, and allow for substantial contributions10 weeks;
- Capacity: Host office teams should have the bandwidth to support a cohort of at least two Fellows in their office for the duration of the 10-week program;
- Technical colleagues: Host office teams have technical employees available to guide and support Civic Innovation Corps Fellows as they innovate over the course of the summer.
2O22 TIMELINE
- November – December: Host offices express interest in hosting Fellows to Coding it Forward. January: Application opens and Coding it Forward begins the applicant review process. Host offices finalize position descriptions.
- February: Coding it Forward reviews candidates and refers them to host offices, which interview and select Fellows by late February.
- March: Cohort finalized no later than March 18th to allow enough time for the onboarding process.
- March – May: The onboarding process takes place.
- June – August: Civic Innovation Corps Fellows report to host offices (10 weeks).
INAUGURAL COHORT
Number of Fellows: 55 Fellows (3.6% acceptance rate)
19 host offices:
- Austin Transportation, Data & Technology Services
- Boston Citywide Analytics Team
- Boston Department of Innovation and Technology
- California Office of Digital Innovation
- Los Angeles Mayor’s Data Team
- Los Angeles Innovation Team
- Miami’s Department of Innovation and Technology
- New Jersey Office of Innovation
- NYC Department of City Planning, Data Engineering Team
- NYC Department of City Planning, Planning Labs
- NYC Department of City Planning, Regional Planning
- NYC Department of City Planning, Urban Design Office
- NYC Department of Health & Mental Hygiene’s Center for Health Equity & Community Wellness
- NYC Mayor’s Office of Data Analytics
- NYC Mayor’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer
- NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission
- San José Mayor’s Office of Technology and Innovation
- Utah Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget
Education: 62% undergrad, 31% grad students (masters, PhD), 6% bootcamp and certificate programs, 1% associates from 39 academic institutions
Gender: 54% Female, 46% Male
Race and Ethnicity: Race – 43% Asian, 28% White, 7% Black, 7% Other, 11% Two or more, 2% Asian/Pacific Islander, 2% Undisclosed | Ethnicity – 9% Hispanic
DEMONSTRATED IMPACT
Corps Fellows have delivered high-impact projects, including conducting the first equity analysis of the City of Los Angeles’s procurement opportunities in 20 years to building out the first performance measurement portal for the State of Utah. Host offices reported substantial cost savings, ranging from the salary of a developer over 10 weeks ($14,000) to savings upwards of $100,000, as well as notable time savings (doubling the speed of an automation process). Supervisors have shared consistently high feedback about Fellows’ contributions. At least three Fellows are joining their government teams on a contractual or full-time basis. A full list of projects is available on GitHub.
CONTACT
Interested offices are encouraged to reach out to corps@codingitforward.com with any questions.