RHoK Boston: Hack the Hub!

Hacking for Humanity, Hacking for Boston

Are you a hacker? A changemaker? A concerned citizen? Do you want to make Greater Boston better? We need your skill, vision, experience, and imagination as we hack for Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, and more!

As part of the National Day of Civic Hacking (NDoCH) (http://hackforchange.org/), Random Hacks of Kindness (RHoK) Boston will facilitate problem solving and collaborations between citizens, communities, and organizations working toward applying civic technologies for social change in Greater Boston.

Come join citizen activists, government partners, entrepreneurs, software developers and designers as we identify challenges, write code, and increase access to civic data!

Hashtags: #hackforchange (https://twitter.com/search?q=%23hackforchange), #RHoKboston (https://twitter.com/search?q=%23RHoKboston) , #CivicTechBOS (https://twitter.com/search?q=%23civictechbos)

We Supply
Challenges, datasets, food to keep you going, and caffeine to keep you awake, along with technologies and mentors to help you and your teams create awesome projects.

You Bring
Your laptop, skills, experience, ideas, and your imagination. Come with a collaborative and team-focused mindset. Whether you are a designer, a back-end developer, a government employee, a student, a data geek, or a highly motivated citizen - you are invited to attend this event. Every group needs a good balance of talent and expertise, and your skills are needed!

Sponsors
RHoK Boston is generously sponsored by the City of Somerville (http://www.somervillema.gov), Socrata (http://www.socrata.com), Constant Contact (http://www.constantcontact.com), and Code for America. (http://www.codeforamerica.org) If your organization is interested in sponsoring this event, please email Harlan at [masked] .

Schedule
Friday night: 7pm-10:30pm

• 7:00pm: Doors open, Sign-ins

• 7:30pm: Opening remarks

• 7:40pm: Keynote: Daniel Hadley, Chief of Staff, City of Somerville

• 7:50pm: Donor messages

• 8:00pm: Project pitches

• ~9:00pm: Team formation and project discussion

• 10:30pm: Doors close

Saturday: 9am-9pm

• 9:00am:Reconvene

• 9:30am: Orientation session for those who missed Saturday

• 9:45am: Socrata API session

• 10:00am: Hacking

• 12:30pm: Lunch is served

• 7:00pm: Dinner is server

• 9:00pm: Doors close

Sunday: 10am-6pm

• 10:00am: Reconvene

• 10:15am: Call for help

• 12:30pm: Lunch is served

• 3:30 Pencils down!

• 3:45pm: Demos

• 4:45pm: Break

• 5:00pm: Demos

• 5:50pm: Closing remarks

• 6:00pm: Celebration!

Challenges & Projects
This year's challenges come from a great mix of local and national sources. If you are interested in pitching your own project at RHoK, please fill out this form (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1vmkM0mOyjYzQ1Fb0lPOMvWp9clwMZc4fBK3EM83JGVE/viewform?usp=send_form) so that we can stay in touch.

National challenges

• Asteroid Detection Network (http://hackforchange.org/challenges/asteroid-detection-network/), NASA

• Easy Access to Location Affordability Data (http://hackforchange.org/challenges/easy-access-to-location-affordability-data/), US Dept of Housing and Urban Development

• Digital Front Door Challenge (http://hackforchange.org/challenges/digital-front-doordigital-divide-challenge/), Code for America

• And many more... (http://hackforchange.org/challenges/)

Local projects

• Boston Green (https://github.com/codeforboston/bostongreenmap), Metropolitan Area Planning Council

• Cambridge Visual Budget, City of Cambridge

• Union Capital Boston

• And more to come!

State Senator Jamie Eldridge presenting at RHoK Boston 2013

About National Day of Civic Hacking (http://hackforchange.org/page/about)
National Day of Civic Hacking is a national event that will take place May 30-June 1, 2014, in cities across the nation and across the world. The event will bring together citizens, software developers, and entrepreneurs from all over the nation to collaboratively create, build, and invent new solutions using publicly-released data, code and technology to solve challenges relevant to our neighborhoods, our cities, our states and our country. National Day of Civic Hacking will provide citizens an opportunity to do what is most quintessentially American: roll up our sleeves, get involved and work together to improve our society.

The event will leverage the expertise and entrepreneurial spirit of those outside of federal, state and local government to drive meaningful, technology-based solutions for these government partners. It demonstrates what's possible when we all work together to strengthen our society and our lives. YOU can make a difference no matter where you live. Last year's National Day of Civic Hacking drew participation from over 11,000 people nationwide and this year's event looks to be even bigger. Last year in Boston we hosted 100+ participants and this year, we're looking to double that! Come be a part of the National Day by contributing to the work going on right here in Greater Boston!

About RHoK (http://www.rhok.org/about)
Random Hacks of Kindness is a global event that endeavours to bring professional developers, designers and other technical facilitators together to brainstorm problem definitions and produce technical tools for humanitarian aid in one (often) sleepless weekend hackathon.

Transportation

Shuttles will run between the Porter Square T station and Greentown Labs during the following blocks of time. The shuttle can be picked up at the MBTA bus stop right outside Porter: look for the National Day of Civic Hacking sign.

Friday: 6:30p - 10:30p

Saturday: 8:30a - 10a & 8p - 10p

Sunday: 9:30a to 11:30a & 5p to 7p

Hubway has generously donated day passes for participants. You can pick up one or two day passes on Friday night, and use them on Saturday and/or Sunday to get to and from Greentown Labs. The closest station to Greentown is Conway Park (https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Conway+Park,+Somerville,+MA+02143/Greentown+Labs,+28+Dane+St,+Somerville,+MA+02143/@42.382386,-71.1065453,18z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m13!4m12!1m5!1m1!1s0x89e377370d501795:0xa0872bf200a2c044!2m2!1d-71.10753!2d42.382852!1m5!1m1!1s0x89e37a8043f2ad39:0x66c28b923ac9c3da!2m2!1d-71.10364!2d42.381441), a 6-minute walk away.

(If you are looking for an app to monitor Hubway station availability, Spotcycle (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/spotcycle/id323382862?mt=8) has proven to be excellent, and free.)