A 21st century call to public service

This post was originally published on the Coding it Forward blog, with the subtitle "A vision for engaging the next generation of digital leaders."

The 20th century saw a rise of national service programs for young people—Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, City Year, Teach for America, and many more—and an increase in the levels of civic engagement and volunteerism. In total, the nonprofit Service Year Alliance estimates that there are over 1.3 million Americans who have participated in a year-long service opportunity. The Congressional Research Service reports that 80% of Peace Corps volunteers are recent college graduates and are considered “generalists,” without specialized training in any given area.

But how does this map to the 21st century?

Service programs are still going strong, placing mission-driven young people in communities both at home and abroad, but increasingly, students are graduating college with advanced skills that they want to use in creating change.

Perhaps it’s time for a 21st century addition to the various opportunities available to the service-minded—one that leverages students’ growing talents in technology and engineering to advance the greater good.

The time to act is now. With each new technological innovation, people are getting left behind. Haley Van Dyck, co-founder of the U.S. Digital Serivce, argues that: “The growing dichotomy between the beneficiaries of the tech revolution and those it’s left behind is one of the greatest challenges of our time.”

The nonprofit Code for America agrees, and points to a key role for a 21st century government to play in leveraging technology to “help government work for people who need it the most.”

Consider computer science education

Computer science is among the fastest-growing majors at colleges across the country, with over 35,000 graduates each year entering a growing talent pool with specialized skills. In today’s digital age, students are no longer generalists—they have the necessary skills to create outsized impact in fields like healthcare, education, nonprofits, and public service.

Coding it Forward was founded two years ago with a mission to inspire and empower impact-driven young technologists to create social impact, drawing from the inspiration of organizations including Code for America, U.S. Digital Service, and Presidential Innovation Fellows. Since then, CIF has scaled the Civic Digital Fellowship, a first-of-its-kind technology, data science, and design internship program for students to solve pressing problems in federal agencies, placing 50 students across 6 agencies in just two years. Already, the Fellowship’s 21st century call to public service has already transformed how young people view the intersection of technology and social impact.

“The experiences that you have as a Civic Digital Fellow will change the way that you think about the jobs you apply for, for years down the road. Being a Fellow was really really awesome in opening my eyes to all these opportunities I didn’t know existed.”

— Rachel Stone, 2018 Civic Digital Fellow

Public interest technology

Now, more than ever, our service organizations should demonstrate that technology, public service, and social impact are not mutually exclusive and that “big tech” is not the only career opportunity for computer science majors.

Recently, many have likened this effort around civic tech to previous efforts in building a “public interest law” community. Analogously, if our nation’s top law students all seek to serve the public good as clerks for the Supreme Court, why can’t the same be true for technologists and civic tech?

This 21st century call to public service has already inspired tens of thousands across the country: applicants to the Civic Digital Fellowship, members of local Code for America brigades, technologists embedded inside governments at all levels. Our next challenge will be to unify this energy, absorb the current interest, and build more pipelines for people to serve.