Martin O'Malley Mingles With Startup Founders.

The former Maryland governor is aligning himself closely with a growing movement to use technology for civic purposes.

To former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley, "civic tech" refers to websites, apps, and social media that "connect caring human beings to one another and the problems that we face as a people."

In 2015, civic tech focused on social good is a big tent, and it's clearly one that this Democratic presidential candidate would like to be seen under in the minds of the public.

O'Malley shared that perspective with The Huffington Post last night at the Microsoft Innovation & Policy Center in Washington, D.C., where he and a panel of judges heard pitches from civic tech startups focused on a variety of societal challenges. . .

His talk, which focused on his record in office and alignment on issues like climate change and student loan debt, was generally well-received at the event, where D.C. politicos in suits and technologists in jeans mixed and mingled enthusiastically. . .

Speaking about his favorite examples of civic tech, O'Malley pointed to the creation of the 911 emergency calling system or cities' 311 numbers for reporting non-emergency issues, from potholes to downed trees.

Today, city 311 systems increasingly feature reports from local residents using smartphone apps like SeeClickFix, complemented by the occasional tweeting pothole.

"It's just a use of the Internet and common platforms to do what we used to do in the old days with sending off an envelope or calling an 800 number," O'Malley went on to describe civic tech. "Now we can do it instantaneously."

When asked about how to ensure that government agencies don't "juke the stats," as David Simon memorably put it in "The Wire," the acclaimed HBO drama that depicted a fictional version of Baltimore grounded in the reality of O'Malley's tenure, the former mayor emphasized the need for governments to audit data and to engage the public in doing so as well

"You still have to audit data and make sure that you safeguard the integrity of the data, but the other side is that you have to make sure you have citizens' eyes on that data," he told HuffPost.

"In other words, the very openness itself reduces fraud, waste and abuse because in aggregating that data down to a zipcode level and neighborhood level, you'll be able to spot anomalies," he added.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/martin-omalley-civic-tech_5628fbece4b0ec0a38935fee