We are organising a series of cross-government Open Source meetups to exchange ideas, talk about code we can reuse or collaborate on and build a community around Open Source.
Making code open is the foundation of the transformation of government. One of the major benefits of open code is how easy it makes collaboration, and potentially reuse; saving other teams time and effort. As I wrote about in my post outlining the next steps for open source in government, the best way to make that happen is to talk to each other.
The first meetup will be co-hosted with the Ministry of Justice (MOJ), on the afternoon of Friday 24th February, at MOJ's office in London.
There will be short talks from GCHQ, Home Office and GDS about the Open Source work we’re doing. We will then have some discussion sessions, organised on open space/unconference principles, so attendees can set the agenda for what they would like to cover. Throughout the afternoon there will be plenty of opportunities to talk to colleagues working on the same things in other departments.
This event is only open to people working in government (both civil servants and contractors are welcome). If you would like to attend, please sign up to the cross-government technical architecture mailing list or ask for the sign up details in the cross-government Slack.
I hope to see you there to continue the interesting discussions we’ve started.
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Anna tweets from @annashipman.
8 comments
Comment by Shaun Hills posted on
Does NHS count as "government"?
Comment by Lucy Denton posted on
Hi Shaun, of course. Please do sign up!
Comment by richard posted on
Hi Lucy - Am I correct in assuming that government contracted 3rd party service providers are excluded ?
Comment by Lucy Denton posted on
Hi Richard
You are correct, however we may have further events for public and private sector attendees in the future.
Comment by David posted on
I foresee problems with the "security" implications of open sourcing code and with the silo mentality of not only different government departments but within the departments themselves.
Comment by Anna Shipman posted on
Hi David,
The vast majority of code can be safely made open without compromising security, and this is recognised by government already. You can see some of the many government organisations already coding in the open here: https://government.github.com/community/#uk-central
As for a "silo mentality", that's one of the things that a meetup should help with. We've already had sign-ups from a broad range of government organisations, so it's clear people are keen to share ideas and work together.
Comment by Kamran posted on
Hi Anna ,
How do I signup as an attendee for this event on 24th ?
Comment by Lucy Denton posted on
Hi Kamran
You can signup by registering your interest via the Slack channel or google group: https://gdstechnology.blog.gov.uk/join-the-conversation/