Time To Make Plans For June’s National Day of Civic Hacking

Time To Make Plans For June’s National Day of Civic Hacking

Next weekend (June 1st & 2nd) software developers across the U.S. will invent new apps that use public data for the common good. In my hometown of Akron, Ohio, hackers will build an app to map the parks in Summit County (along with 2 other projects).  In Washington, D.C., a hackathon at the White House will build apps for a “We the People” website, an online tool meant to make it easier for people to petition the government.

"On Saturday, 1 June, and spilling into Sunday, 2 June in some towns, hackers will join together at community centers, vacant parking lots, and closed-off streets, carrying laptops and trailing power cords. They’ll be connecting with educators, students, artists, and city workers in a coordinated effort to build open-source software that will solve local—or even national—problems.

Organized by HackForChange, with help from companies like Intel and Facebook, government agencies including the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, and nonprofits like Code for America, the National Day of Civic Hacking has events scheduled in 35 states. My community, Palo Alto, Ca., will be coming together at an event called CityCamp, which has an ambitious agenda: addressing problems of connectedness (traffic, parking, and the Internet, for example); sustainability (climate change, energy, and the environment); resilience (disaster recovery and cyber-security); and health (chronic disease, nutrition, and exercise).  Other cities' aims are a little more focused, and perhaps more realistic—though I appreciate my community’s tendency to dream big."

For more info on the national event:
Time To Make Plans For June’s National Day of Civic Hacking


Note: The Tampa Bay version is called Hack for Change, Tampa and will take place at the ITT Tech campus next Saturday & Sunday.