Hackathon - Hacking Somerville Happiness (Initiating the Beta)

How do you improve subjective human well-being?

It's difficult to improve what you can't measure, and difficult to measure something that everyone defines differently. Join The H(app)athon Project (http://www.eventbrite.com/happathon.com), IDcubed (http://idcubed.org/), and the City of Somerville (http://www.somervillema.gov/) as we tackle both challenges in a pilot to quantify, visualize, and improve subjective citizen well-being in Somerville. We're leveraging mobile phone sensor data and IDcubed's Open Mustard Seed (http://idcubed.org/open-platform/platform/) platform to create open source applications that empower citizens to:

• Measure, understand, and act to improve their communities' well-being

• Optionally share data with their communities and city governments for greater impact

• Fully control when, how, and with whom their data and identity are shared

What will we be doing?

There are two parallel foci for this event. Developers in the group will prototype the initial HTML5/JavaScript application with a light Android wrapper to gather sensor data. At the same time, data visualizers will focus on evaluating our existing data and determining what visualizations would be most interesting to include in the initial prototype. Efforts from this hackathon will continue during weekly development sessions at Code for Boston and remotely via our github repository (https://github.com/IDCubed/oms-happathon/tree/gh-pages/design).

Our efforts this weekend will form the core of the application we'll start testing with city staff, residents, and interested beta-testers in the following couple weeks.

Key takeaways from this hackathon:

• A prototype well-being measurement application we can start using to gather and visualize Somerville well-being data.

• The app is open source, so we'll be able to continue using and tweaking it to understand our own well-being, as well as aggregate well-being for our community.

• Technology use: Android, Open Mustard Seed, HTML5, JavaScript, Backbone, CSS, D3.js, Personal Clouds, virtual machines, and more.

Agenda:

Saturday & Sunday 10am - 6pm

The agenda is informal and depends highly on the interests and skills we each bring with us. We'll self-organize once we all arrive.

Directions:

ID3 (idcubed) map
210 South St., #5-1 (https://maps.google.com/maps?q=210+South+St.,+02111&hl=en&sll=42.37839,-71.11291&sspn=0.12871,0.264187&hnear=210+South+St,+Boston,+Suffolk,+Massachusetts+02111&t=m&z=17)
Boston, MA 02111 (https://maps.google.com/maps?q=210+South+St.,+02111&hl=en&sll=42.37839,-71.11291&sspn=0.12871,0.264187&hnear=210+South+St,+Boston,+Suffolk,+Massachusetts+02111&t=m&z=17)

By Car: Though there is parking below the building, it is around $40/hr. We recommend parking near one of the other red line stops and taking the T to South Station. One option, MIT's Hayward Lot (https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Hayward+Lot,+Hayward+Street,+MIT,+Cambridge,+MA&hl=en&sll=42.361505,-71.085389&sspn=0.002012,0.004128&oq=MIT+Hayward+&t=h&dirflg=w&hq=Hayward+Lot,&hnear=Hayward+St,+Cambridge,+Middlesex,+Massachusetts+02142&z=17), is free without a permit during all the Hackathon's hours.

Train (T): Take the red line to South Station. Walk South on Atlantic Ave to Kneeland St. Turn right (West) and walk one block to South Street. Turn right, and it's your first door on the right. (map (http://goo.gl/maps/qdf4d))

Getting in the Building:

Dial 501# on the keypad outside. Take the elevator to the 5th floor. Look for the door marked 5-1 (It will also have an ID3 sign).

FAQ:

What should I bring?

Your laptop and yourself.

Is there data to hack on?

We have some example data to design the initial visualizations for beta-testing.We should have "big" data Q1 of 2014.

Do I have to attend Saturday and Sunday?

Nope! You're welcome to attend any day individually, or even part of a day!