The Federal List of #HackforChange Projects

May 15, 2014

You should be on this list—the current federal government participants in the National Day of Civic Hacking.

There are 15 agencies participating in the event, primarily in and around the Washington, D.C., area. This is a fantastic compilation of what agencies are doing, but it is not enough. We need more widespread participation across the country. If your office has a regional presence and has data or ideas for technical and design projects they’d like to contribute, this is a prime opportunity to dip in and see what it is like to work with people outside of government.

Planning events:

  • National Science Foundation (NSF) – Organizing a hackathon at NSF in Arlington.
  • Health and Human Services (HHS) – Organizing a health-focused hackathon with the Health Data Consortium.
  • Census Bureau – Potentially organizing a hackathon with the Data Innovation DC group.

Submitting a challenge, API and/or data set:

  • National Institutes of Health (NIH) – Providing data sets.
  • Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) – Providing two data sets: Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data set and Consumer Complaint Database. The agency will be drafting a challenge competition around these.
  • Census Bureau – Providing data and challenge competitions.
  • OpenFEMA & HUD – Providing a joint challenge and data sets.
  • USAID – Providing a challenge and API.
  • Small Business Administration (SBA) – Providing a challenge.
  • NASA – Open Innovation and OCT drafting a challenge each.
  • GSA’s Data.gov – Connecting data communities with challenges and local leads.
  • GSA’s 18F – Both offering and supporting a challenge. Also shared their extensive API work.
  • Institute of Museum & Library Sciences (IMLS) – Providing a challenge.

Other support:

  • Peace Corps – Public outreach support and engaging volunteers at the overseas events. Also providing subject matter expertise to some ongoing development work from previous collaborations.
  • GSA’s Challenge.gov – Coordinating post-event coverage to share results of all federally-offered challenges.

There are currently 117 events in 91 cities around the world, with the goal of improving communities and the governments that serve them. Think about how you can contribute. We invite you to join us!

Some fun stats – updated 5/15:

This is the latest update:
118 civic hacking events
164 local organizers
18 federal agencies (latest agencies have been EPA and DOT submitting two challenges each)
Events in 97 cities, 38 US states and 12 countries
82 hackathons
44 Code for America brigades
10 events in Knight Foundation focus communities
6 RHoKs
9 [freespace]s
4 block parties
4 City Camps out of 10 unconferences
7 cities with multiple events: Austin, Chicago, SF, Las Vegas, NYC, NOLA, DC
Cities where multiple events collaborated into one: Portland, Seattle, San Juan, KC 🙂
Of these, there are potentially seven large events: TCamp, SuperHappyAugusta, the Miami conference, HackforLA, TechLA, BuildforSTL and CitycampKC. Overall, organizers expect upwards of 12,000 participants throughout the weekend.
Originally posted by Tammi Marcoullier on May 15, 2014
May 15, 2014