For the second straight year, Philly has been chosen from a pool of 20 governments to receive technical assistance from Code For America Fellows.

According to the Knight Foundation, who support and back the endeavor,

At the core of Code for America is a belief that we live in an age of participation, but that our public institutions haven’t benefited equally from the technologies and approaches that have so dramatically changed the business and social landscape in the past decade. We are blessed to have the support of an institution that also believes fundamentally in the power of civic engagement to create a better world. The John S. and James L Knight Foundation is supporting Code for America’s engagements in these three cities, through its Technology for Engagement Initiative, which funds projects that help communities use technology to take action.

The other cities include Detroit, Michigan and Macon, Georgia.

As part of the project, Code for America will recruit a team of developers, designers and product managers for each city, working with city government on specific projects. Philadelphia’s project is described as follows:

Philadelphia: In 2011, the CfA fellows are bringing the civic engagement platform, Change by Us, to Philadelphia, which enables local leaders to solve local problems, in addition to building multiple other apps apps for Philadelphia, such as tools to explore public art, track city council meetings, find community groups and understand the impact of transportation choices. In 2012, they will build on-top of the Change by Us platform, not only spreading its use across the city, but also developing new features to increase its effectiveness: http://codeforamerica.org/philadelphia2012

The program, according to the Knight Foundation, is modeled after the Peace Corps and seeks to connect leaders through social media and community engagement.

“We live in an age of participation,” said Jennifer Pahlka, founder and executive director of Code for America, “but our public institutions haven’t benefited equally from the technologies and approaches that have so dramatically changed the business and social landscape in the past decade.” As part of the service-year program, Code for America recruits fellows — with an emphasis on finding local applicants from the participating cities — to work with key stakeholders inside city government to collaboratively brainstorm challenges, opportunities and solutions.

This is very cool for us.