A Tale of Two City Hackathons
In the fall of 2011 the cities of Philadelphia and Baltimore were the sites for civic hackathons organized by a collective of developers and activists. Separated by one month and roughly 100 miles, each city's event focused on a different area of civic activity, used a different format, employed different strategies and attracted different participants. Both sought the same outcomes; meaningful civic change and the long-term viability of hackathon projects. Looking back on these events, which hackathon will be judged to be more successful? Which projects survived and are prospering in 2012? Which strategies work the best when conducting civic hackathons? This session aims to identify some answers to these questions.
Presenters
Mark Headd is a frequent writer and speaker on communication technologies and open government who works as a Developer Evangelist for Voxeo Labs. He holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, and is a former adjunct instructor at the University of Delaware teaching a course in electronic government. He served for three years as the chief policy and budget advisor for the State of Delaware’s Department of Technology and Information. He has also served as Director of the Delaware Government Information Center and as Technology Adviser to former Delaware Governor Thomas Carper. Mark has built open government applications for the District of Columbia, the Sunlight Foundation, the New York State Senate, and the cities of New York, San Francisco, Toronto, Baltimore and Philadelphia.
Monday, March 12
