NYC Gov. Office of the Public Advocate, Bill DeBlasio

New Media Programming Intern, June 2011 - Aug 2011

In the summer of 2010, I worked as a New Media Programming Intern at the New York City Public Advocates Office under Bill DeBlasio. It was an enriching and unique experience to work in a government atmosphere, especially given that it was not a common environment CS engineers and that the city had been experiencing rapid technological advancement. NYC's government has been striving to make NYC once of the world's top technology hubs, with major efforts within government and in establishing "Silicon Alley". 

I feel quite fortunate to be part of the early movements in these goals. As a New Media Programming Intern I conducted initial design research and wireframes that led to creating a blog tool for the Public Advocates site, intended to help NYC bloggers connect to city services and to each other in order to improve living standards for citizens. The tool is now active and can be viewed at www.advocate.nyc.gov/blogs/. In addition to the blog tool, I worked on the initial stages of a designing public record database for the city, which was being built with the goal of making public information easily accessible and less time consuming than filing traditional FOIA requests. Throughout my time there, I also acted as the department representative in conferences focused on OpenGov and NYC's Big Data efforts. 

I believe that information is the most powerful tool you can give someone, and I am proud to have worked with a team committed to providing public government information and to improving the daily lives of the city's inhabitants.