Silicon City and Civic Hall Response

The Silicon city exhibit was extremely informative about the past of technology that we used and depended on. Before our visit to the exhibit I never really gave much thought to the advancement of technology and how dramatic our lives have changed around them. I saw how large and expensive computers used to be and how a smart phone now can do much more than a 5 million dollar computer could. Also while watching the videos and learning about how technology has advanced so far and how New York has changed from focusing on production to focusing on innovation. For example New York used to be a place for manufacturing clothing whereas now with the development of technology people in New York design clothing and manufacture the clothing in other countries. The exhibit also discussed the rising need for education and educated people to fill all of the innovation jobs that are being stared here.

Then on to Civic Hall to learn about how technology can be used to benefit the public good. In class much of what we discussed had to do with the effect of New York City becoming an innovation economy and how that leads to gentrification and dislocation of people as well as raising the cost of living but seeing “ the other side of the coin” so to speak was good. Learning about how many of these people came up with their ideas. For example, with benefit kitchen how just trying to help a co-worker lead to an amazing idea that can help millions. Also learning about 18F and how they reinvented how people bid for government contracts to bring quality products to the government to avoid disasters like the helth.gov fiasco. However what absolutely stunned me is the open source code that the publish online for anyone to use impacted me the most because I never thought that a private company funding this would allow the organization its funding to publish code for free online. When I think of the government and the technology the government uses it think of the cheapest and most outdated technology available but with our visit to Civic Hall I learned that technology can be used effectively by the government for the good of the people.