The Idea

Hacks4Democracy – A hackday on opendata
The Opendata Hackday is a two day barcamp-style meetup on 17/18 April 2010. The goal of the event is to demonstrate that it’s possible to progam creative and innovative prototypes and applications, in short time and on a low budget, that allow us to make data from politics and public administration accessible and usable.

This is your task! We are looking for committed programmers, web developers, graphic and UI designers, researchers, journalists and others who are interested.

Together we want to develop concepts to use the data of public institutions and then start implementing our ideas right away.

Motivation // Why all this?

We all profit from open and transparent public institutions. Fre access to data means the possibility to innovate and to better control public resources. Also, public data is usually financed through public funding, i.e. by tax payers. Another reason for free access and use!

Science and research, corporations and freelancers, you and I. Everybody should get the opportunity to use available data. For themselves, for clients, for others, for all.
To turn this vision into reality we need you all! Get involved and help us push this project forward! Compelling and innovative projects that show good use of public data are the best argument for opening up further data sets.

In addition, through Opendata Hackday we hope to raise awareness for the topic Open Data and Open Government in the wider public. We want to demonstrate the potential for innovation that lies dormant within free access of citizens to data from politics and public administration.

Hackday is organized by the Opendata Network in cooperation with HeckdeOverheid from the Netherlands. We hope to be able to win other projects, groups and individuals for this idea.

The Concept:

* One weekend + hackers + programmers + designers + journalists + other nerds
* plus: more or less open data from public administration and politics
* and: a weekend of time & our innovation and creativity
* result: applications that show that you can create websites, mashups, visualizations etc that offer a real value for citizens

Similar “Hack The Government” events have been organized in several countries, including the Netherlands, France, UK, Australia, USA etc. In April 2010 there will be one in Germany. We are planning a two-day barcamp-style hackday. We expect abozt 50-150 participants.

When and where:

* Date: 17/18 April 2010
* Location: Kalkscheune, Johannisstr. 2, 10117 Berlin
* Website: Hacks4Democracy – A hackday on opendata
* Coordination wiki: Opendata hackday Wiki
* Contact: info[at]opendata-network.org