Adopta Agency

Adopta.Agency In Trump Administration

Adopta.Agency is an ongoing project for me. I'm still using the template as a basis for some custom open data work, but I wanted to pause for a moment and think about what Adopta.Agency means to me in a Trump administration. The need for Adopta.Agency is greater than ever. We need an army of civic-minded individuals to step in and help be stewards of public data. The current administration does not see value in making government more transparent, something that will trickle down to all levels of government, making what we do much more difficult.

To be honest, after the election I hit a pretty big low, regarding what I should be doing with open data at the federal level. Now in February I feel little more optimistic and I wanted to set a handful of Adopta.Agency goals for myself, and think more about the project in the Trump Administration. In the next couple of months I want to:

The Trump administration doesn't change the Adopta.Agency mission and purpose at all, it just raises the stakes. I still view the federal government as a partner in this, we can't do the hard work of making government more observable without it's involvement. However, it is a much more hostile and unfriendly environment right now, making it even more urgent that we adopt existing data sets, and give new life in a safer place until the right partners in the public and private sector can be found.

It is easy to get overwhelmed by this work, I do often. I'm going to start with identifying two data sets, download the Adopta.Agency blueprint, and get to work liberating the data, and publishing it to Github. I find the process therapeutical and it helps me process what is going on right now--I hope you will join in. I look forward to hearing your story.