Hackathons!
- Written by
- Clay Johnson
- Date
- 02/27/2009 2:02 p.m.
Our second big announcement of the day is that we're launching a pilot project: Sunlight Labs Live Hackathons.
The idea really came from Tim O'Reilly and O'Reilly media, who said "Hey, why don't you come out to Web 2.0 expo and see if you can get some projects done with some of the developers there." We said "Great Idea!"
At the same time, James opened up the doors for us at PyCon and they said "Great Idea!"
So now the question is: what do we do? We think that's a community decision, so we put up a feedback page where people can vote for what their favorite ideas are to work on. Then at each hackathon scheduled, we'll send some team leaders out to help lead the projects. Go vote now!
We're also into your ideas, so if you have one, feel free to submit yours. A note: we're naturally averse to advocacy type ideas. We'll likely not do them. It isn't that we don't believe in democracy though! It is because we're a c3 organization, and are legally prohibited in certain ways from doing very much in the form of advocacy.
But transparency, we dig! So submit your ideas and help us choose what we all work on next and leave your comments on the ideas too. We're anxious to hear what you think.
If you're going to be at web2.0 Expo in San Francisco, PyCon or even TransparencyCamp then we'd love to have you participate.
If you're interested in hosting a hackathon, let me know too! You can email me at clay at sunlight labs dot(that's with a .) com and we'll talk.
Discussion
What are Your Thoughts?
Have thoughts that might fuel this discussion further, post them below. (Markdown syntax is supported in comments.)
I would encourage hackathoners to come to eDemocracyCamp on April 19 -- we can setup a hackathon there: http://barcamp.org/eDemocracyCamp2
Sorry I am new to all this ... so my question may be dumb ...
What would be an example of advocacy type work?
And what is a c3 org?
Cheers
Are there any conferences out on the east coast? Sounds like a good networking possibility.
Sounds great! Now the events should be given a little more exposure in my opinion. It will draw in developers and enthusiasts from many more places.
I hear that you have gone a long way from the original idea and that the Great American Hackathon will take place next week with a very interesting topic of developing open source applications to open government. Sounds like a great idea, good luck to you all.