Open Platforms for Open Government - The City of Austin Experience
February 25, 3:30 pm - 4:30 pm
We will discuss the City of Austin website redesign project that utilized Drupal 7 open source technology and our implementation of the first City of Austin data portal. The process to realize these initiatives involved unique partnerships with community hackers (OpenAustin), non-profits (Code for America) and with City management--which required a significant cultural shift in how government usually operates. We will also discuss how open platforms helped us achieve this paradigm shift within the organization--and hopefully reveal ways that civic hackers can do the same in their community.
Matthew "Mateo" Esquibel
Programmer Analyst Supervisor
Internet/Intranet Web Design
Communications & Technology Management
City of Austin
Matthew Esquibel has been working in the Government technology for over 15 years and is currently the technology manager of the City of Austin website and data portal, data.austintexas.gov. In this role, he helped lead the recently completed City of Austin website redesign project utilizing Open Source technology (Drupal 7), implemented the first City of Austin data portal and was instrumental in the effort to partner with Code for America in 2012. He has been active in community engagement and has worked closely with community groups like OpenAustin to try and find new and creative ways to address technology gaps in government. He has been an active advocate of Gov 2.0 initiatives and in 2011 was voted Public Servant of the year by GovFresh.com.
