Connecting local government digital makers

LocaGov Digital Makers (Makers) is the network for designers and developers from LocalGov Digital.

Makers is open to all, and attendees at our Hack Day in June included people from local governments, the Ordnance Survey, the Department for Communities and Local Government, the Government Digital Service, the NHS and the private sector.

So why is the Makers Meet-Up on 11 September just open to those working for a council?

Change is generally enacted by those with a mandate or by consensus when a critical mass start doing something new. Makers don't have a mandate, and whilst we're much more that just a group of volunteers, we're only working in tens of councils rather than hundreds.

On Thursday we've got people from over 25 councils coming to talk about how they can start changing things and working together, whilst still retaining the autonomy the need to meet local users' needs.

We've got LocalGovCamp veterans coming, we've got others taking their first tentative steps into tweeting and we've got loads of people in between.

Real change isn't going to happen until we start to get a number of councils doing things differently and this is only going to happen by getting them to engage directly with each other, not just once every few months but through things like Makers Project Teams.

Most Makers events will be open all, but just sometimes we'll need to connect councils with other councils, almost as a local government digital service.

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