Code Across America Civic Hackathon Saturday

Take Data Beyond Transparency

February 21, 2014; 10:34 AM • by Richard Hayes

A hackathon (also known as a hack day, hackfest or codefest) is an event in which computer programmers and others involved in software development, including graphic designers, interface designers and project managers, collaborate intensively on software projects (via Wikipedia).

Code Across America Civic Hackathon is bringing activists or all sort together to create apps, open data, and inspire. The theme of this year’s event, which is taking place in over 50 cities across the world, is Let’s Take Data Beyond Transparency. It’s one thing to have access to data but it’s quite another to do something constructive with that data.

If you’re having trouble grasping what that means the best way to understand is to take a look at the ideas tossed around on the event page. As a parent wouldn’t it be great to have an app. that let you know the exact location of your child’s school bus? An app. showing a graphical breakdown of our local government’s spending would be informative and likely depressing in equal measures.

If you’ve got the technical know-how or a vision of what can be done with the mountains of data floating around RVA this is the event for you.

Code Across America Civic Hackathon is taking place Saturday, February 22, from 8:00 AM to 9:30 PM at 804RVA (1657 West Broad Street).

Image: Code Across America Hackathon event page