Civic Hack DC 2025 – Part 1: Making Public Comments Count (register on Luma)

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More info on our Website
# ​Join Civic Tech DC, DataKind DC, and partners for Civic Hack DC 2025:
​A collaborative, hands-on hackathon dedicated to using AI, data science, and data engineering techniques to unlock public-comment data and illuminate how the public influences federal policies.
## ​🌟 Event Updates:
​We’ve been blown away by the interest in this space; from nonprofits, policy experts, and technologists alike. It’s clear that making public comment data more accessible is a challenge that resonates widely.
​As we’ve explored the data and spoken with partners, it’s also become clear: one hackathon isn’t enough. That’s why we’re kicking things off on July 26 with Part 1 of what will now be a two-part event series. We’ll follow up with Part 2 in the fall, building on the work we start here.
## ​🚀 About the Event
​Join us for a hands-on, collaborative hackathon focused on improving public access to regulatory comment data from [Regulations.gov](http://regulations.gov/). You'll team up with technologists and policy experts to build open-source tools that make this data easier to analyze, explore, and reuse.
​No prior experience with federal data required—just experience working around datasets and a laptop.
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Full List of Event Partners

• ​Civic Tech DC
• ​Moravian University
• ​CareSet
• ​Data Science DC
• ​Data Engineers DC
• ​Data Visualization DC
• ​DataKind DC

## ​🧠 Why It Matters
​Every year, thousands of public comments are submitted in response to proposed federal rules—but they're locked away in PDFs, spreadsheets, and inconsistent formats. Our goal is to fix that.
​You'll work with a 2.3TB+ dataset made accessible by Professor Ben Coleman’s team at Moravian, updated every 4 hours and hosted on AWS. This is a rare opportunity to apply your skills to a real civic data infrastructure challenge.
## ​🔍 What We’ll Build Together
​This non-competitive event will focus on building reusable tools and answering key questions like:

• ​Who's commenting? (Individuals, nonprofits, corporations)
• ​What are the major themes or sentiments?
• ​Are there coordinated efforts or mass submissions?
• ​Which comments shaped final policy outcomes?

## ​🙋‍♀️ Who Should Attend

• ​Technologists: Data engineers, data scientists, AI/ML developers, and coders of moderate skill or experience.
• ​Policy Experts: Government, nonprofit, or academic professionals who understand the rulemaking process
• ​Curious Collaborators: Students, newcomers, and anyone excited to learn

## ​📬 Submit a Problem Statement
​We're actively seeking problem statements from policy experts to explore during the hackathon. If you have an idea, please submit it through this form (due July 23); we'll review submissions and select key problems for participants to tackle.
​One confirmed track: analysis of the recent recent CMS RFI concerning patient-centered health technology.
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## ​What we'll build together:
​In this collaborative, non-competitive event, participants will develop open-source tools designed for reuse with any public comment dataset, past or future, exploring questions such as:

• ​Who's commenting? (Individuals, nonprofits, corporations)
• ​What are the major themes, sentiments, and sector-specific concerns?
• ​Can we detect copy-paste campaigns or coordinated submissions?
• ​What are organizations' historical commenting trends and motivations?
• ​Which public comments directly influenced the final regulatory outcomes?

## ​📆 Schedule (Subject to Change)

• ​9:30 AM – Registration & Breakfast
• ​10:00 AM – Welcome + Data Tour w/ Prof. Coleman
• ​10:30 AM – Problem Overview & Team Formation
• ​11:00 AM – Hacking Begins
• ​1:00 PM – Lunch
• ​5:45 PM – Final Presentations
• ​6:30 PM – Wrap-up & Networking

## ​🧩 Want to Support the Event?
​We’re seeking:

• ​Partnerships: Organizations interested in co-hosting, promoting, and helping us facilitate the event.
• ​Subject Matter Experts: Individuals with expertise willing to serve on our problem review board and provide insights on submitted problem statements.
• ​Sponsorships: Financial support, venue donations, food and beverage provision, or computing infrastructure; including cloud credits, AI resources, and infrastructure support.

*Please reach out to hack2025@civictechdc.org
​No prior experience is required! just bring your curiosity, ideas, and laptop. We'll provide starter kits, roaming mentors, food, and drinks.
​
Attendee emails will be shared with CareSet for recruiting efforts. If you would like to opt out, please let an event organizer know.
​Event image: "Librarian at Lektriever in Washingtoniana Division", from the DC Public Library Archive
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