Hello, World!

My name is Wes Morgan. I'm the creator and director of Code for Change. In my other life, I'm an online organizer for U.S. PIRG (and all the state-level organizations that are a part of our network). Originally from Oklahoma City, OK, I have lived in Denver, CO since graduating from Calvin College in 2003.

I got my degree in computer science, and I knew I wanted to change the world. Not the graduation speech kind of changing the world, but the actual, get-your-hands-dirty and move some mountains kind. I assumed I would have to find a job that had nothing to do with my major. Working for IBM or Microsoft was not going to cut it.

I landed a great job with U.S. PIRG that combines my skills with my passion, and I wanted to find a way to get more people like me plugged into the social change movement. Software is becoming a necessity for any organization doing grassroots organizing in the 21st century. And like so many other necessities, it's expensive, time-consuming, and difficult to obtain. However, unlike a lot of other things, there is a whole world of people out there who write software in their spare time because they enjoy it and release the fruits of the labor to the world for little or no cost and with no restrictions on modifying it and sharing it with others under the same terms.

The open source software community is, in many ways, the kind of grassroots, democratic community that organizations like U.S. PIRG are working to create around all the issues they work on (environmental, social justice, good government, consumer rights, etc.). Plugging into the open source movement seemed like the perfect fit for progressive organizations' software needs, and Code for Change is my attempt to make it happen.

When I came up with the idea for Code for Change, I had three goals in mind:

1. Recruit some outstanding student and recent-graduate programmers and get them plugged into the open source software movement, especially the corner of it working on advocacy-focused software
   
2. Get some great work done on software that non-profit advocacy groups all over the world will benefit from
3. Start laying the groundwork for a whole community of people who work on this software because they have programming skills and want to contribute them to progressive causes

Well, we've just finished week 1 of the very first Code for Change summer, and I'm very excited and optimistic. We've definitely pulled off #1. Ann, Matt, and Daniel are very smart and ready to do some hard work this summer. We're starting on #2 next week, and I think everyone will be impressed by what we get done. #3 is definitely the "plant sequoias" aspect of the program, but I think we'll make some great progress on that too this summer.

I originally came up with the idea for Code for Change about 2 years ago, and it's pretty cool to actually be doing it now. By the end of August, I think we'll have created something pretty unique. Not only the software, but also (and maybe especially) the outlet for other people like me, Ann, Matt, and Daniel to get involved in progressive social change.

Watch this space, as things should only get more interesting from here.