Code for America, 155 9th Street, San Francisco CA, 94103
Organized with the OpenGov Foundation and POPVOX
#Hack4Congress is a multi-city event that brings together political scientists, technologists, designers, lawyers, organizational psychologists, and lawmakers to foster new digital tools, policy proposals and other innovations to address the growing dysfunction in Congress.... Read more about #Hack4Congress San Francisco
SPUR Urban Center, 654 Mission St, San Francisco CA, 94105
Current and former members of Congress and Bay Area technologists address the prospects for solving congressional dysfunction
Co-organized with the HKS Alumni Network of San Francisco, the OpenGov Foundation and POPVOX
The Ash Center and the HKS Alumni Network of San Francisco invite you to a kickoff panel for the San Francisco #Hack4Congress “Not Just for Technologists” hackathon. The panel will address key structural problems that undermine the efficacy of Congress and explore solutions for improving the lawmaking process in addition to better to facilitating cross-partisan dialogue, and modernizing congressional participation. Panelists will also discuss the prospects and strategies for integrating technology into the operations of Congress today.... Read more about ’Fixing Congress’ Panel Discussion and Reception
Harvard Business School, Batten Hall, 2nd Floor, 125 Western Avenue, Boston, MA
The Challenge: Join us and work with Massachusetts cities to solve real challenges they face. Help Holyoke develop solutions to improve its pedestrian experience & support Somerville measure the impact of its city services.
Who Should Participate: Everyone! You don’t need to be a technology expert to participate... We’re looking for business thinkers, policy analysts, journalists, designers, community organizers, urban planners, or anyone else who is interested in solving real urban challenges.... Read more about Global Urban Datafest: Smart Cities Challenge – Boston
JFK Jr. Forum, Harvard Kennedy School, 79 JFK St., Cambridge, MA
Congressman Robert C. "Bobby" Scott (D-VA), Penda D. Hair, Co-founder and Co-Director, Advancement Project, and Alex Keyssar, Matthew W. Stirling Jr. Professor of History and Social Policy, Harvard Kennedy School
We will explore the current and future prospects for voting rights on the 50th anniversary of the landmark Voting Rights Act. Voting has been the cornerstone of American democracy since the earliest days of the republic, and throughout our history the right has been progressively expanded, though in fits and starts, to our current universal suffrage. Yet a wave of legislation at the state level seeking to impose additional burdens on voting spells the end of our longstanding efforts to expand the right to vote. Given the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision in Shelby v. Holder, which struck down a key section of the Voting Rights Act, and the unlikelihood of a federal reauthorization of the VRA, what actions and strategies hold the greatest promise in protecting and promoting the right to vote in America?... Read more about 50 Years after the Voting Rights Act: Strategies for Moving Forward
JFK Jr. Forum, Harvard Kennedy School, 79 JFK St., Cambridge, MA
Professor Phillip Goff, UCLA, Mayor Annise D. Parker, City of Houston, Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey, Philadelphia Police Department, and Dean David Ellwood (Moderator)
Recent events in Ferguson, New York City, and across the nation have laid bare the high levels of distrust and tensions that define relations between police and citizens in many communities. These episodes of police violence, and the contentious responses that followed, have revealed an important divide in how different citizens engage with and are treated by police and criminal justice institutions – experiences that are quite often shaped by race.... Read more about Challenges to Democracy: The Future of Policing
Allison Dining Room, 5th floor of the Taubman Building, HKS campus
Panel discussion with former U.S. Representative Bill Delahunt and HKS faculty to identify solutions for solving congressional dysfunction with reception to follow.
The Ash Center invites you to a kickoff panel for its weekend #Hack4Congress “Not for Technologist” hackathon. Panelists will address key structural problems that undermine the efficacy of Congress and explore solutions for improving the lawmaking process; facilitating cross-partisan dialogue; modernizing congressional participation; closing the representation and trust gaps; and reforming campaign finance.... Read more about Fixing Congress Panel Discussion
American Repertory Theater, 64 Brattle St., Cambridge, MA
Followed by a Discussion with Jane Mansbridge and Aisha Bhoori
About the Event The Ash Center is partnering again with A.R.T. on a post-performance discussion for the new play O.P.C., written by Eve Ensler (creator of The Vagina Monologues). Our featured speakers will be Jane Mansbridge, a world-renowned scholar of democratic representation, deliberation, and activism, and Aisha Bhoori, a Harvard College student interested in literary criticism, political theory, and social justice, who will speak on the political and generational themes of the play.... Read more about Eve Ensler's O.P.C. [Obsessive Political Correctness]
124 Mount Auburn Street, Suite 200-North, Room 226, Cambridge, MA
About the Series The Workshop on Immigration, Race and Ethnicity (WIRE) at the Ash Center is a bi-monthly seminar style forum for Harvard and Boston area researchers and students working on the topics of immigration, race and ethnicity from a diverse variety of perspectives. Workshop sessions are thematically organized and themes are different each semester. For the fall semester of 2014, the themes are: (1) Experiments on Race, Immigration, and Public Policy and (2) Economic Impacts of Immigration and Immigration Policy.... Read more about Workshop on Immigration, Race and Ethnicity (WIRE)
124 Mount Auburn Street, Suite 200-North, Cambridge, MA
Robert Behn, Senior Lecturer in Public Policy Joseph A. Curtatone, Mayor of Somerville, Massachusetts and Senior Fellow, Ash Center Mark Moore, Moderator, Hauser Professor of Nonprofit Organizations
About the Event Harvard Kennedy School Senior Lecturer Robert Behn and Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone will discuss Behn's new book The PerformanceStat Potential: A Leadership Strategy for Producing Results. The book explores the growth and prominence of PerformanceStat leadership strategy across so many jurisdictions and agencies in pursuit of improved government performance.... Read more about Making Cities Work: The PerformanceStat Potential
Land Hall, 4th Floor Belfer Building, 79 JFK St, Cambridge, MA
The Politics of Displacement in the American City: A Conversation with Two Documentary Filmmakers
King Williams, Director, The Atlanta Way; Andrew J. Padilla, Director,El Barrio Tours: Gentrification USA; Karilyn Crockett, Director of Economic Policy & Research, City of Boston; and Quinton Mayne, Assistant Professor of Public Policy
About the Event At their best, cities can be places where people with different socio-economic and ethnic and racial backgrounds come together and use the ballot box and other political means to achieve a just and fair society. Likewise, city governments can use land-use and social policy, among other tools, to strengthen community life and improve access to basic goods and services. Yet often these same policies – both in the processes through which they are decided and in their ultimate effect on residents’ lives – exacerbate rather than reduce social exclusion and economic disparity.... Read more about The Politics of Displacement in the American City
Organized with the OpenGov Foundation and POPVOX
Current and former members of Congress and Bay Area technologists address the prospects for solving congressional dysfunction
The Challenge: Join us and work with Massachusetts cities to solve real challenges they face. Help Holyoke develop solutions to improve its pedestrian experience & support Somerville measure the impact of its city services.
Congressman Robert C. "Bobby" Scott (D-VA), Penda D. Hair, Co-founder and Co-Director, Advancement Project, and Alex Keyssar, Matthew W. Stirling Jr. Professor of History and Social Policy, Harvard Kennedy School
Professor Phillip Goff, UCLA, Mayor Annise D. Parker, City of Houston, Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey, Philadelphia Police Department, and Dean David Ellwood (Moderator)
Followed by a Discussion with Jane Mansbridge and Aisha Bhoori
About the Series
Robert Behn, Senior Lecturer in Public Policy
The Politics of Displacement in the American City: A Conversation with Two Documentary Filmmakers