fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Thanks, Carmen, a very cool summary of your work and we have a few things in common.
By: Götz Thümecke
Tags: Startup, Marketplaces, Funding, Venture Capitalist, Angel Investors

Thanks, Carmen, a very cool summary of your work and we have a few things in common. Starting with the hashtags obsession like #goDO #thisIsnotpossible, or emojis 🌞 and 🚀 which we as well using a bit too often internal to support our messages. And big one for me trying to be fun(ny) when the stakes are high which is helping to take our work not too serious and have fun on this start-up journey. I was particularly smiling about your comment “Given our German nature”. Being a Berliner who is married to the CEO (as well German) we know well what you mean by that :) We are leveraging ze scherman with a very diverse team and a start-up culture which we have born as a globally distributed organisation format where the IP is based in Switzerland but where the working parts we call them pockets of excellence are around the world. I am currently busy with Chris (from the US) and Barry (from Cape Town) to put a “defensible matrix” into place to get more clarity on our way of defending the platform www.eventerprise.com . Your great article and interview has helped here to find a structure. Thanks for that. Best Götz

https://www.eventerprise.com/page/investors/
Dropee-Best Newcomer at ASEAN Rice Bowl Startup Awards 2018
By: Global Startup Awards
Tags: Startup, Wholesale, Dropee, Malaysia, Marketplace

“We intend to roll out new features that would assist businesses to gain more B2B transactions and have deeper insights into their supply chain ecosystem.”

We had a nice chat with Lennise Ng, CEO & co-founder of Dropee, a B2B wholesale marketplace.

Dropee is a pretty ambitious product, what’s the next step towards world domination?

“Expansion across the SEA region!”

What new technology are you particularly excited about that could further develop your solution?

“Our mission since the beginning of Dropee is to help businesses buy and sell easily in bulk. Currently, Dropee’s platform allows businesses to gain insights into their inventory movements, orders, and customers. We intend to roll out new features that would assist businesses to gain more B2B transactions and have deeper insights into their supply chain ecosystem.”

How do you work together with your corporate partners? Is there any case study that was a huge success and you are particularly proud of?

“All of our partners that we have worked and/or intend to work with would contribute in maximizing value in the supply chain ecosystem by creating more transparency and convenience for businesses to buy and sell in bulk. We are not allowed to share any information about our clients and partners at the moment as we’re under strict NDA. However, do stay tuned for big upcoming news and partnerships from our end. :)”

Any local and regional scenes, companies that you particularly excited about?

“We’re excited for the future of SEA. Many B2B businesses in this region have been operating traditionally and we’re super pumped to work together with them in order to transform their businesses to drive the regional Industry 4.0 forward.”

What was the best advice someone gave you, that really stuck with you and helped along your path in becoming a successful entrepreneur?

“Do what you care about and take the risk; there’s no doubt running a business will require lots of grit but the only thing worth working on is something you truly believe in.”
Alibek Issaev commented on the prospects of income for mobile applications in 2019
By: Alibek Issaev Public Insider
Tags: Mobile, Marketplaces, Marketing, Apps

According to the 2018 annual report, consumer spending in the global App Store reached $ 101 billion. This is 75% more than in 2016. This amount includes only paid application downloads, purchases, and subscription fees. 74% of the applications for which users are willing to pay are games. However, an increase in purchases of non-gaming applications is also observed. Dubai businessman Alibek Issaev noted that we cannot but rejoice such dynamics. “Last year, users paid for non-gaming applications such as YzerChat, 18% more than in 2016. And we’re talking not about a separate country, but about the whole world, which speaks of great prospects for the founders of such applications”, says Alibek Issaev. It should be noted that the leader in the purchase and payment of services is China — 40% of all consumers. Moreover, half of all downloads from AppStore also come from there. But at the same time, user engagement is consistently higher in the United States. The most interesting indicator is this: outperformance of GDP Growth in Key Economies Japan, Brazil and the UK were the top 3 countries where mobile consumer spending advanced significantly faster than the overall Gross Domestic Product.
Blockchain’s Killer Apps are Marketplaces
Tags: Marketplaces, Marketing, Ethereum, Digital Marketing, Ethereum Blockchain

Using the 0x Protocol, we can remove the middleman and let the buyer and seller exchange any kind of digitized good or service directly.

Microsponsors is creating a “trust-minimized” marketplace for sponsors and advertisers so they can take control of their marketing budget (and its supply chain)… and for creators and publishers to get paid for their work. While it may sound counter-intuitive, the radical innovation of trust-less and trust-minimized markets is that there are fewer (if any) centralized middlemen who we must trust in order to transact with one another.

To provide a fair and level playing field, Microsponsors is removing middlemen and automating trust — and that’s a good thing.

As we get started, some of the functions of the marketplace operator will be centralized out of necessity: verifying participants, establishing a reputation system, relaying orders, fraud detection, etc. But over time, we will seek to minimize Microsponsors’ involvement in the operator’s functions and replace them with software and even better: market participants who can perform these functions instead, so they can also participate in the economics of this dynamic multi-sided marketplace.

Over time, part of Microsponsors’ mission will be to simply get out of the way. We think this is a radical business innovation that will help fight centralized monopoly power and realize the most democratic ideals of the internet, and the markets built on top of it.
I have huge news to share today!
By: Tayga Baltacioglu
Tags: Startup, Marketplaces, Funding, Cleanzy, Mutlubiev

Cleanzy raised a further $2.1 million from Collective Spark and Maxis VC! This brings us to $4.5 million in total funding! Together with our long term strategic investors, we will continue to revolutionize the home cleaning sector and turn our vision into reality!

I want to thank a couple of people. First, I want to thank my incredible team who is working so hard to achieve our goals and giving 200 % of their performance.

To Atil, Gorkem and incredible Collective Spark team who are trusting and backing us from the first day we have met ( actually years ago). And of course, leading our last two rounds! As you always said, it’s just the beginning!

To Selami, Erkan and Maxis team, thank you for sharing our vision and giving so much effort to close this deal. We have much to do. Welcome aboard!

To our existing investors Rolf, Umur, Dogan, Firat, and Can, it would be impossible to do it without you guys!

To our legal magicians, Okan and BTS team, lots of sleepless nights with a hack of tea! You guys are the best:)

And finally to my friends & family, thank you for supporting me, I know it’s hard to deal with me when I’m grumpy.

Next, a lot of growth, expansion, and dominance!

Onwards and upwards!

Tayga.
Open Source Strikes Again — Welcome Mike Shultz!
By: Tom Linton
Tags: Cryptocurrency, Marketplaces, Team, Ethereum, Blockchain

We are excited to announce that Mike Shultz has joined the Origin Protocol engineering team full time!

In our quest to build an amazing product we are always open to new open source contributors jumping in and having a go at some of the issues open on our GitHub repository. We’ve continually found that this is a great way to discover new team members who are willing to roll up their sleeves and get familiar with our stack. This is how we found Mike.

Hailing from Montana, Mike got his start with Origin by getting an early iteration of our mobile app up and running on Android, a task which he completed admirably, despite it being a bit out of his comfort zone. From there, he has progressed to more familiar ground, working in a backend and DevOps role. He helped us debug and diagnose some issues with our blockchain event listener and more recently developed a tool to improve transaction parallelism in our meta transaction relayer. We’ve recently pushed this to our production servers, and the work he did here has been invaluable.

Like a lot of the team, he was attracted to Origin’s openness. We take a lot of pride in our open-source and “public by default” heritage. He decided to join us full time because, in his own words, “the team here is on another level and is creating something that will have a large impact on the Ethereum ecosystem.”

Mike has a varied work history. He held a position as Director of IT for Project Vote Smart, whose mission was to provide unbiased information about candidates for public office. This position was based in the Montana wilderness, 25 miles from the nearest town, and involved encounters with bears, moose, badgers, and 8-foot snowdrifts. He describes the commute as “simultaneously amazing and horrifying”. Search and rescue was called to recover several interns during his time there. Fortunately for future interns, he migrated their server infrastructure to AWS during his tenure. Origin Protocol should be a breeze in comparison.

Managing Servers in the Montana Wilderness

Mike has created an innovative Python package called Solidbyte, which is a development tool for creating Ethereum smart contracts using Python. We thought this was really cool. Who doesn’t want to deploy and interact with smart contracts in Python?

Mike is a tinkerer and spends his spare time messing with whatever he can get his hands on: engines, electronics, bikes, you name it. We are very pleased to welcome him to the Origin team!

Learn more about Origin:
Introducing Automation for Jira’s brand new third party extension API (Server/Data Centre)!
By: Andreas Knecht
Tags: Marketplaces, Jira, Automation

When we first created Automation for Jira, we didn’t just want to create another little app in the Atlassian Marketplace. One of our main goals was to create the automation platform that powers Jira.

Soon after launching Automation for Jira, we added support for third-party extensions (using part of the same old API that was provided by the old Jira Automation Labs plugin) such as ScriptRunner and Midori.

Using this API, other Marketplace vendors have built all sorts of extensions for Automation for Jira — for a complete list, check out our docs!

While this worked okay, it was restrictive. So today we’re announcing the brand new and much improved third party API for Automation for Jira!

What’s new?

The old API suffered from quite a lot of flaws. It only supported pluggable actions (no triggers or conditions) and it required vendors to implement a lot of old deprecated methods.

The only way to clean this up was to start from scratch with a brand new API. Some of our design goals for this API were:

Support all component types including; triggers, conditions and actions!

More control over rule execution and being able to pass additional inputs to subsequent components

Smart value rendering support

Client-side rendering using any framework (or version) you prefer! (this also means more reliability so your extension UI won't break any longer when we update React!)

What does this mean to me?

All this sounds great, but so what?! This is best explained with a picture of what’s now possible using the new API:
Introducing: A new class of hybrid domain for sale pages in partnership with Bodis.com
Tags: Marketplaces, Domains, PPC

How to setup the Hybrid for sale pages

Note: the hybrid for sale pages will only work for domains that you have parked at Dan.com.

What to expect

Once you activate the hybrid for sale page for a domain name, we will update your landing page to a new layout that combines the offer box with an related links PPC/Affiliate ads section.

Here is an example of how the page will look to visitors:

The ads and related links structure is mandated by Google Ads so we didn’t have a lot of freedom to design these pages differently.

For a real life example, visit https://kfx.com

Getting Started

In order to start, you will need both a Dan.com and Bodis.com account. If you do not already have a Bodis account, you can create one here https://www.bodis.com/

When you have both accounts, you will need to submit your Bodis user ID in your Dan.com settings.

You can find your Bodis user ID by logging into your account at Bodis.com, and navigating the Dan integration section: https://www.bodis.com/account/dan

Step1:

Step 2:

In this example case, the Bodis user ID to use is 12345.

Step 3:

Once you have your Bodis user ID, you can go to the settings at Dan.com, and fill it in at the bottom of the page:

By filling in your Bodis user ID and pressing the save button at the bottom of the page, your Bodis account will be linked to your Dan domains, enabling the hybrid pages.

Note: We highly advice you to use this service while using our own nameservers (ns1.dan.com & ns2.dan.com). However, if you have parked your domain via an A-record instead of using our nameservers, you will need to add a CNAME record to your domain host settings that connects your domain to your Bodis ID.

The CNAME record should dan.(domain name).(extension) with value (BodisUserID).dan.bodis.com

For example, if your domain is foo.bar and your bodis user ID is 12345, you would need to go to the host settings for your domain at your registrar, and add a CNAME record for dan.foo.bar and value 12345.dan.bodis.com.

Activating PPC for your domains

After connecting your Bodis account, you are now able to turn on the hybrid feature for your domains.

You have three options:

Enable hybrid parking pages for all your domains at once Enable hybrid parking pages only for domains that have a minimum amount of monthly traffic Enable or disable the hybrid for sale pages per domain

You can also enable or disable hybrid parking pages per domain in your portfolio.

Clicking the pointer icon in the domain row will activate or deactivate the hybrid for sale feature for the domain.

In the near future we’ll make setting up these pages easier but for now, if you follow our manual above you’ll be able to maximise your sales & passive PPC/Affiliate income by using our unique domain landing pages!

With kind regards,

Christian Vogel

On behalf of the DAN.COM team
Announcing Market One Capital investment in Magaloop — a trading platform for independent retail
By: Michał Mroczkowski
Tags: Announcements, Marketplaces, Startup, Magaloop

There are over 50 million independent traders and a few hundred thousand local wholesalers worldwide who share similar struggles when interacting with each other. The current process is analog and opaque, without transparent pricing, no control over promotions/discounts and limited traceability and certainty of delivery on time. Orders are facilitated typically by phone without any process-based order confirmation. Simultaneously, it is not that uncommon to see orders sent/received through fax machines.

Step by step, Magaloop is resolving these bottlenecks with a platform that connects all participants of this market network by enabling independent traders (who proved to be a vital part of economies in the last months by offering proximity and convenience) to discover products, find the best offer and order from thousands of SKUs in the mobile app. On the other side of the marketplace, Magaloop enables FMCG brands and wholesalers to find new customers, manage the current customer base more efficiently, and analyze and predict sales of products. Currently, Magaloop operates in Berlin, Germany and with the fresh funding is building its presence in other regions.

Magaloop stands out from a wider movement of next-gen B2B vertical platforms which enable both sides of the marketplace to interact in a super-fast and convenient fashion. We could observe similar concepts in several segments, incl. restaurant < = > food supplier with Choco, Rekki, Katoo, Dagens Mat and Orderlion, or construction companies < = > material providers with Schüttflix, Bex, Simplo, Werkly and Inpera. They focus on the SMB segment (at least one side, often both) where procurement processes are fast and simple and where there’s still a considerably blue ocean environment compared to the enterprise segment populated by products from tech giants like Oracle, SAP or from startup incumbents in form of Scout RFP (Workday) or Scoutbee, to name a few. We expect that the above-mentioned verticals are just initial examples rather than a definite set of industries to be digitalized.

And lastly, Magaloop is powered by a rockstar team: Uwe Hoelzer, Michael Högemann, Oliver Rushpler and Luca Ongaro. They represent decades of industry expertise within the industry combining sales, strategy and product talents.

If you are interested in independent retail or you are developing B2B marketplace in different industry sector feel free to reach out to me at michal.mroczkowski@moc.vc or fulfill our online application.

Join Market One Capital newsletter here
Zoom App Marketplaceに自社サービスをのせるまでの道のり🚀
By: Jungmo Kang
Tags: Zoom, Spir, Marketplace

API Document

はじめに Zoom App Marketplaceでアプリを作成する。種類は上に書いたようOAuth App。作成は簡単にできて開発環境ですぐ利用することができる。ただ注意点が１つある。作ったアプリは他人と共有できない。エンジニアAが作ったアプリはエンジニアAのアカウントでしか利用することができない。この制約は審査にパスしてからも同じである。Zoom Forumに質問をしたが、他のユーザーと共有する術は無い様子。

Scopeで追加したのは以下の２つ

マニュアルが充実しているので、APIの開発自体は予定どおり進められた。

わからないことがあればZoom Forumへ質問したらすぐに返信をもらえる。

大前提として、Submission Checklistに載っているすべてを揃える必要がある。

準備後審査で戸惑ったのは以下である。

When we refer to the production environment, we need you to use the production version of the authorization URL. … you can make this change to your production environment, but only for the test account which you provide, so no other users see a button that does not work. Either site is fine, as long as you use the production authorization URL, our Zoom test accounts are specially whitelisted so that we can install the production version of your app before it is published on the Zoom App Marketplace.

審査担当者から、「テスト用アカウントのみ」見えるようにすればいいのではと提案をうけたのでサービスを変更した。まだSpirでは Feature Toggle機能が無かったが、これを期にFeature Toggleを入れることにした。

all app listing information (Images, descriptions) and resources (Support URL, Documentation URL, Privacy Policy) must be in English. Your service itself can be in a language other than English

…

As the majority of our users are English speaking, and the Zoom App Marketplace is available worldwide, we require these resources to be in English, especially because they are official legal documents that dictate what our users can expect when it comes to how you will retain their data.
Claim Free RARI tokens if you’ve traded NFTs previously.
Tags: Marketplaces, Free, Trading, Ethereum, Blockchain

RARI is the Governance Token of the Rarible NFT Platform and the first of it’s kind in the Non-Fungible Token (NFT) Space.

https://app.rarible.com/

I have heard rumblings about earning RARI through trading NFTs recently, it intrigued me, so I digged deeper!

Searching Twitter I quickly found this tweet by DclBlogger:

Very interesting!!! I checked my most active NFT trading wallet and yes, I had nearly 200 RARI (worth over 4 ETH at the time of writing!). Excellent!

So, how do you do this? This is my quick guide to help you out. If you’re reading this article, then you’re probably in the NFT space. Either through Blockchain Gaming, or NFT Art collecting. So I’m presuming, that you understand the Web3 mechanics (e.g. connecting a Metamask account).

Go to https://app.rarible.com/ and click the Connect wallet button:

2. On the banner at the top, click the Governance tab, then click the $RARI Token button:

This takes you to the $RARI Token Governance Page:

https://app.rarible.com/rari

3. On this page it will display the amount of RARI Tokens that you can claim. The claim mechanism is through your connected Wallet and will cost you ETH Gas fees. Here is a screenshot of one of my alternate accounts.

4. Claim your token, and that is it. You have your Free RARI Tokens for previously trading NFTs. The $RARI page also explains why this AirDrop has happened:

From the RARI FAQ:

If you haven’t received your RARI in the first waves of the airdrop, but you know you have significant NFT holdings that you purchased on a platform that records data on-chain (check eligibility criteria above!), please fill out this form: http://rarible.typeform.com/to/QuS2XQ9x/.

If you comply with the requirements, you will receive $RARI in the third wave of the airdrop. The exact dates are to be announced later.

5. So you have your RARI, what to do with it.

You could sell it for ETH if you wish (this is what I have done). Uniswap has the highest liquidity and the direct Uniswap link is here:

https://app.uniswap.org/#/swap?inputCurrency=0xfca59cd816ab1ead66534d82bc21e7515ce441cf

Rarible have a great article all about it here: https://medium.com/@rarible/introducing-rari-the-first-governance-token-in-the-nft-space-5dbcc55b6c43

The End Notes!

I have had a request to add a ETH Donation/Tip address. If you would like to Tip me for this (who knows you may have got a huge RARI/ETH windfall lol) my ETH tipping address is: 0x57c877020427b9a772256979ffd7Df68c249A3b7

Please Clap, Follow me here on Medium, Follow on Twitter etc. My Social Details are below.

Medium — https://medium.com/@cryptoblockdan

Twitter — https://twitter.com/CryptoBlockDan
How B2B Marketplaces are changing procurement
By: Robin Dechant
Tags: Procurement, Marketplaces, Venture Capital, Software, Entrepreneurship

Covid-19 as one more trigger event for companies to re-evaluate their supply chains

When E&Y surveyed more than 2,900 executives in 46 countries across different industries in March this year, they asked how the Covid-19 event would affect their decision on their global supply chain. 52% mentioned they were taking steps to change, 40% said they would re-evaluate their supply chain, and only 8% said there was no change so far:

Examples of these changes are that companies look for alternative ports, source alternative components, develop dual sourcing strategies, and do critical reviews of trade routes and their existing suppliers. While in the past, many companies focused on optimizing their supply chain for efficiency, we might see a shift of that focus to more resilient and faster adjustments. Similarly, as a response to Covid-19, Porsche Consulting suggests to develop a strategic master plan for the reactivation of the supply chain and to invest in resilience “to lift the supply chain up to a new maturity level.”

Put differently, Covid-19 is one more trigger event for companies to re-evaluate their supply chain and, therefore, an excellent opportunity for new tools that can help companies in sourcing and managing their suppliers. The founder of Knowde, a B2B marketplace for chemicals where Sequoia recently invested $14M, confirmed this pressure to find new ways to procure and sell due to Covid-19:
Qoorio: a marketplace for knowledge and experience
By: Change Ventures
Tags: Startup, Lithuania, Marketplaces, Justas Janauskas, Change Ventures

In August 2018, over dinner and wine in the home of Justas Janauskas and Gabija Grušaite, I learned about the idea that would become Qoorio. Justas and Gabija had reflected on how the world could be a better place and how people had retreated from face-to-face conversations into their smartphones for advice. Their exploratory conversations with potential users elicited a very enthusiastic response. A year later, Change Ventures had led the pre-seed round for what was originally named HumansApp, now rebranded as Qoorio, and the business had completed a successful pilot launch in Vilnius, Lithuania.

In 2008, Justas co-founded a pre-loved clothing marketplace that later became known as Vinted (Kleiderkreisel in Germany). As CEO, he led the company through the early years of experimentation and growth, including a challenging period when the company’s growth stalled and they hired a new CEO to pivot the business model. His relationship with Change Ventures began when he joined as venture partner for Fund I, where his angel investment activity regularly surfaced new startups for us to evaluate. During this process we got talking about his new venture.

Justas had stepped back from a day-to-day operational role at Vinted in late 2017 to serve on the board, at which point he had more time to reflect on new opportunities. Together with Gabija, they discussed what they saw as one of the big challenges of our time — the tendency of technology to lower face-to-face interaction between human beings and the parallel growth in the global problem of loneliness. They theorised that technology could perhaps also address these challenges but that the right solution was not available at the time. I saw the same issues and was intrigued by their idea of a marketplace that would connect people with one another for a face-to-face interaction. Further, it was my strong belief that this would extend beyond face-to-face interactions and also grow into an online model.
Why the Wild West Days of Payment Processing Are Over
By: Vinit Patil
Tags: Marketplaces, Tokenization, Vendors, Sales Agencies, B2B

In the early 2000s, Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and the Japan Credit Bureau decided they had it with these laizze faire practices and worked together to accomplish two goal s—

Protect their cardholders from having their card and personal information stolen. Stop their own bleeding of billions of dollars each year to card disputes.

The result was version 1.0 of the PCI Compliance rules which over time have been updated

The companies have committed $5–6B each year to crack down on non-compliant businesses.

The Gift and Home industry is especially under siege.

With over $8–10 Billion in transactions flowing through, there are numerous points in the supply chain at which credit cards are vulnerable to theft.

In response to this challenge, Sales Agency Software companies have taken steps to guard against compromise through a process known as “tokenization”.

Tokenization is much more expensive and software-intensive, compared to encryption, but we’ll get to that later.

Here’s how it works in token-based systems with modern order writing systems such as Pharos, Aleron, and Ribbon:

When an order is placed, the rep does not enter the credit card directly into the order-writing software. They open a form called “iFrame”, and enter the credit card directly with the payment processor for that vendor. The credit card info doesn’t go directly to the vendor. It first makes its way to the payment processor. Let’s say, Authorize.Net or STRIPE. The payment processor receives the credit card data, and returns a “token” This token is then transmitted to the vendor, to be settled once the order has shipped. The vendor NEVER sees the entire 16 digit card number, EVER.

It is crucial to understand the difference between a “token” and a “raw credit card”. The raw card info is transmitted directly to the vendor. While the data is encrypted, it can be easily intercepted and decrypted by hackers and used to purchase whatever they wish, wherever they wish, on an ongoing basis.

Legacy Order Writing Systems have become overly reliant on directly transmitting raw credit card info to vendors, the only safeguard being transmitted over a secure HTTPS line. You might as well send card information over email.

Yes, it sure is convenient but the consequences are crippling.

It only protects the information in transit leaving the information vulnerable once it is exposed at the final destination—which is the supplier's computer.

“I wonder of it’s ok to recieve my card information as a raw text file and I’m worried what to do with it” says a supplier who requested anonymity for fear of hackers targeting her system.

The onus is on the supplier to follow compliance standards which can be expensive and time-consuming. Compliance requires answering a laundry list of 150 questions and documenting checks and balances in case of an audit.

The alternative is to only work with systems that follow stringent compliance practices.

Why Tokenization is Important
To understand Robinhood, you must understand who you’re messaging
By: Stephen Blackwell
Tags: Stephen Blackwell, Robinhood App, Marketplaces, Wall Street, Wall Street Bets

Here’s a dumb question: Have you heard of Robinhood?

It’s a mobile application. It allows you to buy and sell stock. You can even book put-call options like a professional trader. And, in the past 15 days, it has received more social media mentions and front-page headlines than climate change, coronavirus, and unbelievably, former President Trump.

Okay, so that last sentence is author speculation. However, Robinhood is everywhere, mainly due to a group of amateur traders with incredible internet-handles using the app to execute their designs.

Chief among those designs was the push that drove GameStop’s share price up 1726%, over a 15-day stretch, while the company’s operations continued to falter.

To fully explain what occurred in the collision between Reddit, Robinhood, and GameStop, you would need to be an expert in financial regulation, financial deregulation, meme culture, hedge funds, short-selling, meritocracy, civil disobedience, and message-board hive minds. It’s no wonder we haven’t received a clear answer. There isn’t one.

However, the heart of any application-powered marketplace is messaging. Application messaging has obscured over time, favoring marketplace functionality over direct connection between participants. Robinhood takes this development to new heights.
Welcome Meha Shah to the Code for Canada team!
By: Jason Farra
Tags: How We Work, Civictech, Hiring, Code For Canada, Who We Are

Meha has worked extensively on fellowship programs around the world, including collaborations with the New York City Department of Education and Teach for Pakistan.

We’re excited to start off 2019 by welcoming the newest member of the Code for Canada team: Meha Shah!

As Fellowship Program Lead, Meha will be overseeing multiple aspects of our fellowship program, including managing partnerships with government hosts and recruiting fellows for the program, starting with the upcoming 2019 cohort.

You can follow Meha on LinkedIn.

Meha has eight years of experience working on fellowship programs in the education and nonprofit space, focused on bringing diverse talent to schools that need them most and ensuring that students have access to a high-quality education. She previously worked at TNTP, collaborating with the New York City Department of Education on their Teaching Fellows program. Prior to that, she worked with Teach for Pakistan.

Meha also holds a MSc in Social Policy and Development from the London School of Economics and a BA in Economics from Queen’s University.

She is extremely interested in thinking about how strong systems can increase efficiencies and is very excited about the potential for technology to improve outcomes.

“I’m really excited to bring my experience with fellowship programs to the civic tech space,” Meha says. “I’m a big believer in solving challenges and working with government for public good.”
Farewell Rebooters
By: Ahmed Rufai Isah
Tags: Transition, Reboot, Civictech, Nigeria, Governance

At the end of May 2019, I bade farewell to my colleagues and family at Reboot, a firm where I had spent the last 3+ years working on the most challenging issues in Nigeria and Africa. Just this week, my colleagues hosted a send-off party for me and I had the opportunity for the last time as a team to revisit some of the most heartwarming experiences we shared.

In 3 years, they promoted me three times while contributing my quota to building the company’s portfolios in Africa and Nigeria, including Institutional reforms, media development, and open governance. Personally, I spent much of my time leading a DFID project in Northern Nigeria focused on elevating civic tech engagement towards improved delivery of public services.

I am transitioning satisfied that the voices of more marginalized people now count in deciding the policies that shape their lives, a grand vision that my colleagues and I share. I have gained so much experience understanding and supporting civil societies, community-based organizations, media, and government bodies to better how they leverage technology in doing the work that they do.

Perhaps the most important experience I have gained and the lessons I have learned is the application of Human-Centered Design and Design Research to tackling the most complex challenges our world face today.

My colleagues remain the most important people in my life and the best people I have worked with yet. I am grateful for their love, support, and guidance throughout.

Purpose, dedication, and collaboration among others have defined my work culture as I strive alongside others for impact. And I remain grateful for all the lessons learned along the way.

In a few weeks, a new chapter begins. A very exciting and challenging journey that I am ready for. Grateful to the Almighty creator of the universe for the opportunity.
Peer Learning: Selling Civic Tech To Government
By: Grace O'Hara
Tags: Civic Tech, Tools, Peer Learning, Government, Guide

Productise Your Offering

By setting parameters and having a well defined product that includes a price tag, Code for Australia has been able to quickly prepare materials and proposals for new opportunities — each one will be unique, of course, but the infrastructure of the project remains the same. This means you’re not reinventing the wheel, and spending time crafting messages when you show up to every conversation, and also helps gives a tangible vision to what can sometimes unravel into lofty ideals.

A note on price tags: be aware of procurement thresholds, or how much money a government can spend before they have to go out for procurement. Projects run by both Matt and Alvaro had managed to avoid lengthy and frustrating procurement processes by pricing projects or programs just under these limits.

Understand The Relationships in Government

For example, what are the dynamics and power relationships between the people you’re talking to, the person they’re reporting to and the person funding or signing off on the project. Usually the people Code for Australia talks to are incredibly passionate and eager to create change, but need to sell it internally and to convince their time-poor seniors. Empowering them with everything they need is crucial, and listening to the obstacles they’re facing will prove valuable learning.

Be Persistent And Cheeky

So, how has Code for Australia managed to get in touch with people who love their work and are able to sign off on a project? Good old-fashioned door knocking, of the digital and real world kind. Researching who senior leaders are and reaching out via cold emails, and dropping a few names along the way, has been one way.

Senior leaders historically have been open to big ideas but sometimes take ages to do anything with them, or find someone to take it on. It takes hard work to find the right people and get in touch, but it pays off in the long run.

The team at OpenUp reflected on their experience with hiring people who had established networks in government, as another way of reaching new people.

If You Can, Go Big

For both visibility and exposure, it can help to focus on one big program.

Code for Australia, for example, partnered with a state minister (Gavin Jennings, Special Minister of State, Victoria) to fund three Fellowship teams in one go. This meant the team could reach out to heaps of different departments and agencies to say, “Here’s a free program, tell us all your problems”. They had more applications than they could offer Fellowships, but it gave them a starting point to go back to a lot of those conversations.
Working in the Open: June 10–14, 2019
By: Luke Simcoe
Tags: How We Work, Weeknotes, Civictech

One of Code for Canada’s principles is to operate in public. These regular blog posts put that value into practice, giving readers a window into what we’re doing — and how we do it.

We had 21 fellows in the same room on Wednesday! Outgoing Cohort 2 fellows met with incoming Cohort 3 fellows to share and learn from one another.

Welcome to our #weeknotes! Here’s Code for Canada’s Rose, Bud and Thorn for the week of June 10–14, 2019.

🌹 Rose: We announced the dates and locations for the 2019 Code for Canada Showcase! Last year’s Showcase was a high point for our team; watching people get inspired by the work our inaugural fellows and their partners produced, shining a light on impactful civic tech and digital government projects from Fredericton to Victoria, and seeing relationships form as our community networked was incredible. This year, we’re excited to build on that success and have scaled the Showcase upwards and outwards to include events in both Ottawa and Edmonton. We hope you’ll join us if you can, and we can’t wait to share the insights from our lightning talk speakers, as well as the stories of our second fellowship cohort, with you.

🌱 Bud: At one point this week, we had 21 fellows in the same room! The outgoing Cohort 2 fellows have been really present and involved in onboarding for our incoming Cohort 3 teams. We think it’s been a really valuable experience for both sides; it’s an opportunity for new fellows to learn from those who’ve come before, and also a timely reminder for outgoing fellows of just how far they’ve come in the past nine months. Watching them interact, seeing the lessons they want to share and the questions they want to ask has got us thinking about how we can best leverage the growing alumni network of Code for Canada fellows.

📌 Thorn: We might need a chore wheel. It’s easy to let the little things slip when you’re busy, and this week we collectively dropped the ball (or the broom?) on keeping our office tidy. We care a lot about ensuring the place where we work is inviting and uncluttered, and we’ve been able to achieve that so far with a pretty ad hoc system. However, with so many friends and fellows moving through the space this week, we realized we need more of a system. Fortunately, we’ll be reviewing office norms at our quarterly retreat in a few weeks and we can settle on something to test out.
Why I’m Coding it Forward: Technology’s Interdisciplinary Impact
By: Hillary Mclauchlin
Tags: Higher Education, Coding It Forward, Civic Tech, Technology, Social Impact

“Breaking down the barriers between public service and tech, Coding it Forward showcases the breadth and range of opportunities within civic tech — a world unique in its composition of individuals from a diverse range of backgrounds and interests.”

As someone majoring in History, Literature and East Asian Studies, I’ve often elicited surprise from friends and family after mentioning that I’m working for an organization called Coding it Forward this summer. Within my first few days on the job interacting with Chief Technology Officers, running between federal agencies, and chatting with our brilliant Civic Digital Fellows, I’ve often had to pinch myself.

While I’ve had previous experience working within government and hope to pursue a career related to public service — two key elements of Coding it Forward’s mission — the wider world of tech has often felt inaccessible and closed-off to someone like me who feels like they are “not good” at computer science.

A trip with this year’s Fellows to Defense Digital Service

Following a somewhat circuitous path, I’ve come to realize the danger in this way of thinking, not only for students like me who are drawn to the social sciences, but for anyone hoping to enact meaningful societal change.

That’s one of the many reasons why I’m so honored to join the Coding it Forward team. Breaking down the barriers between public service and technology, Coding it Forward showcases the breadth and range of opportunities within civic tech — a world unique in its composition of individuals from a diverse range of backgrounds and interests.
Meet the Team 🍉🎆🇺🇸 Summer 2020
By: U.S. Digital Service
Tags: Team And Culture, Engineering, Civictech, Design, Government

Katie Aloisi (she/ her), Designer @ Department of Homeland Security Digital Service. Previously at Fannie Mae. From Vienna, VA.

I spent most of my career in consulting (at EY and PwC), where I helped government and commercial organizations apply human-centered design to improve products, services, and experiences for their customers. Most recently I worked at Fannie Mae, where I helped reimagine and transform the mortgage industry for the digital age.

The U.S. Digital Service is in many ways a dream job. I’m a mission-driven person and I’ve been looking for a home like USDS, where doing the greatest good for the greatest number of people in the greatest need is actually written into our mission. I’m especially passionate about understanding and helping people who are underrepresented or otherwise lack a voice, and am so excited to be joining the asylum team where I’ll be working to streamline and simplify the asylum process.

What do you most value in your friends?

We’re always there for each other. Whether what we need is a soul-renewing hug (something I’m missing a lot right now!), an inspiring pep talk, a no-judgment venting session, or a giant tub of cheese balls, we have each others’ backs.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

Waking up to the sound of birds and the prospect of a full day of R&R at the most peaceful place on earth, La Selva Giardino del Belvedere. This is where our closest family and friends converged to celebrate my wedding — and my twin sister’s wedding — last year. Yes, we had a double wedding and I highly recommend it! We spent a whole week embracing la dolce vita, eating pasta and gelato, wandering the olive groves, cooking big family dinners, chatting by the fireplace, and sitting in the many spectacular outdoor spaces planning our next visit.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?

Two related traits: resignation and complacency. These can be dangerous things, for oneself, and at a large enough scale, for the world! I’m already so inspired by the optimism, tenacity, and initiative I see among USDS’ers working on the most pressing and intractable challenges in government.
A community approach to building digital services in the Mayor’s Office
By: San José Moti
Tags: Cities, Digital, Civictech, Government, Public Service

Task Force members Kunwarpreet Singh Behar, Angela Pham, Floriberta Sario, & Justin Mata

By: Clay Garner

It’s no secret that American local governments struggle to provide good digital experiences for their residents. Whether you’re looking to apply for a permit or find the nearest free meal distribution site, confusing and sometimes clunky public apps are the norm. But a bad user experience isn’t just inconvenient — it could be the difference between someone getting fed or going hungry. This information asymmetry also erodes trust in city hall.

Good government means good digital experiences.

In a pandemic that limits in-person interaction and community engagement, many of our more than 1 million residents now rely on city websites and social media platforms to access critical information and services. For people on the wrong side of San José’s digital divide, including those experiencing homelessness, this period has exacerbated inequities around internet quality and device access — making simple, light-weight solutions all the more crucial. Not everyone in Silicon Valley has the latest smartphone or reliable broadband.

In the Mayor’s Office of Technology and Innovation, we’ve been exploring how to catalyze better digital experiences for San Joséans. Can we get the basics right in product management? As a first step to addressing this challenge, we’ve recruited a Digital Services Task Force to help source a community problem, empathetically study it, and design/iterate a corresponding solution. Our fellows are San José State University students or recent graduates, fluent in languages including Spanish, Vietnamese, Punjabi, and Hindi, and passionate about using their technical skills and creativity to serve the community. Over the course of several months, the Task Force aims to launch a basic web app that will help connect young adults in San José to critical social services and other benefits they might be eligible for.

Beyond launching an end-product, we hope that the Task Force will become a platform to nurture the professional development of rising civic technologists in San José — providing product management experience, peer connections, and industry mentorship.

Thank you to Task Force members Floriberta Sario, Kunwarpreet Singh Behar, Justin Mata, and Angela Pham for your willingness to brave ambiguity and give back to the community.

Clay Garner is Deputy Chief of Staff to Mayor Sam Liccardo.
Announcing the 2019 NYC BigApps Blockchain Cohort
By: Nyc Bigapps
Tags: Blockchain, Government, Emerging Technology, Civictech

Get tickets for NYC BigApps Blockchain Demo here!

Blockchain is teeming with use cases for governments all across the world. We’ve seen successful pilots implemented in places from Delaware to Ethiopia. New York City, however, is a whole different ballgame. With a population of over 8.6 million, legacy systems have been kept in place to maintain the reliability and safety of information without interrupting public services. The bigger a company or organization gets, the harder it is to innovate and test emerging technology — large governments are equally affected by this.

This year, NYCEDC and SecondMuse teamed up to explore potential use cases for blockchain in New York City. We first held need-finding workshops with government stakeholders from NYC Economic Development Corporation, NYC Department of Buildings, NYC Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications, and more to determine their most pressing challenges and establish where blockchain may help to provide meaningful solutions. From this, three Challenge Areas were selected–– Identity, Energy, and Real Estate Asset Management.

Then, we asked the blockchain community: how would you use blockchain to address these Challenge Areas and improve the efficiency, security, and transparency of public sector services in NYC? This exploration is laying the early groundwork to introduce new technology to city government.

The competition is nearing the end with 10 finalist teams preparing to present their answers to that initial question. These teams have identified and developed practical use cases for blockchain in civic applications and will present their solutions at our upcoming Demo Day. Please join us for an all-day event on October 3rd, 2019, where you will hear all 10 of the following companies pitch for mentorship, services, cash prizes, and more! Tickets are available here.