This document proposes combining unemployed skilled workers and open source development practices to build software applications for improving public services. It suggests [1] having thousands of unemployed people gain experience by collaboratively building apps using peer production and crowdsourcing methods. [2] Open source practices have proven successful for large collaborative projects. [3] Agile and lean development methods could help deliver projects incrementally and ensure customer involvement. The proposal is that combining these approaches could benefit the unemployed, government, and citizens, while addressing challenges around coordination, adoption and other issues.

1. Software
for and by the Public
Yiannis Mavraganis
Software Engineer & Certified Scrum Master
Founder of social recommendations platform www.laloon.com
Passionate Brazilian Jiu Jitsu practitioner Athens 2012

3. Today’s Unemployed
Educated Knowledge Worker

4. Government must do more with less!
• Public Sector runs on software
• High percentage of Government
IT projects fail
Better software in public sector
to improve people's lives
and boost economic development

5. Combining the Two Needs
We can combine both needs
and have thousands of skilled unemployed people
active and gaining experience
by building applications
for better public services

6. How do we do combine them?
We have
the tools and methodologies
to support the idea
Peer Production and
crowdsourcing

7. Open Source Development Methodology
Works
…collaborative open source projects demonstrate
empirically that large, complex systems of code can be
built, maintained, developed, and extended in non-
proprietary settings in which many developers work in
highly parallel, relatively unstructured ways and without
direct monetary compensation.
Steven Weber “The Political Economy of Open Source Software.”
Global Business Network March 2001

9. Proposal
Government already using Open Source
products in the lower layers of software stack
(operating systems, application servers,
workflow engines) and saving money
The time has come to open (not out) source
applications

10. Agile and Lean
Software Development Practices
Save IT Projects
 Self-organizing teams
 Incremental delivery
 Small batches of work
 Customer involvement
 Test-driven development
 Minimization of work in progress
 Visualization of workflow
 Continuous process improvement

11. How a 100 mpg Car Was Developed in
Three Months*
* Forbes May 10 2012

12. Lean Startup in Government
"The Lean Startup isn't just about how to create a more
successful entrepreneurial business, it's about what we can learn
from those businesses to improve virtually everything we do.
I imagine Lean Startup principles applied to government
programs, to healthcare, and to solving the world's great
problems. It's ultimately an answer to the question 'How can we
learn more quickly what works, and discard what doesn't?'"
— Tim O'Reilly, CEO O'Reilly Media

13. We know the how but ….what to build?
Peer production for
service design
Crowdsourcing
approach for
requirements-gathering
and problem-solving

14. Collaboration between People
who know the problem domain
and will be the producers of the solution

15. Let’s do it
√ Open source works
√ Agile and Lean work
√ Requirements Crowd-sourcing and
peer production work
X Public services do not work
at high quality
Well educated unemployed people
X don’t work
but
√ want to work

16. Win-Win Situation
The skilled unemployed
Practice their knowledge in the real work environment
Serve their country and have a reason to stay
The Government
Reorganizes Public Sector for free
Citizens
Enjoy better public services and can help their country
by contributing to this effort
Private companies
Have long term benefits

17. Challenges
• Intellectual rights
• Security Issues
• Coordination
• Conflict Resolution
• Architectural Decisions
• Government Adoption

18. Each of us Can Be a Part of the Solution
To exit the financial crisis, we have to use
the force of “the opponent” for our own good
in order to start the mechanism rolling…

19. “We fight because we like fighting, we sing
even though there is no ear to hear us.
We work even though there is no master to pay
us our wages when night falls.
We do not work for others, we are the masters.
This vineyard of earth is ours, our own flesh
and blood.
We cultivate and prune it, we gather its grapes
and tread them, we drink its wine, we sing and
we weep, ideas and visions rise in our heads.
In what season of the vineyard has it fallen your
lot to work? In the digging? In the vintage? In
the feasting? All these are one.”

20. “We fight because we like fighting, we sing
even though there is no ear to hear us.
We work even though there is no master to pay
us our wages when night falls.
We do not work for others, we are the masters.
This vineyard of earth is ours, our own flesh
and blood.
We cultivate and prune it, we gather its grapes
and tread them, we drink its wine, we sing and
we weep, ideas and visions rise in our heads.
In what season of the vineyard has it fallen your
lot to work? In the digging? In the vintage? In
the feasting? All these are one.”
Nikos Kazantzakis Spiritual Exercises:
Preparation “The Third Duty.” Translated by Kimon Friar