Public Journalism Club and Microsoft Innovation Center Armenia, the organizers of Hackathon[YAN] Yerevan contest which will take place on 17-18 December 2011, have received over 50 applications from teams willing to take part in the competition. 50 teams submitted projects that aim at solving the issues of Yerevan, Armenia’s capital.
Projects will be hacking issues related to health, transportation, education, environment, problems of disabled people living in the city and tourism.
Hacks/Hackers global coordinator and New York co-organiser Chrys Wu (@MacDiva on Twitter) spent an evening with Hacks/Hackers Brighton on Tuesday, 22 November to report on what groups around the world have been doing.
She explained Hacks/Hackers started just 18 months ago, with an idea originating in mid-2009.
“Developers and journalists really do need each other,” Wu said, explaining how a variety of social meetups, talks, demo days and hackathons are the basis for the Hacks/Hackers community.
Last week was a bit of a blur: after meeting with the Chicago Tribune News Applications team, and descending into the Tribune dungeon for an evening of brainstorming with the local Hacks/Hackers group, I was off to New York for the Hacks/Hackers NYC “Beyond Comments: Discuss, brainstorm with Shirky, Michel, Gupta” event at NYU’s Tisch School for the Arts (home of the ITP program).
Sadly, I didn’t manage to capture Clay Shirky’s talk where he touched on some of his recent research into online conversations.
[The] partnership is a three-year initiative of the Knight Foundation and Mozilla to harness open-web innovation for journalism.
Through a series of innovation challenges and community events, we will identity 15 fellows that will be embedded in leading newsrooms around the world. These fellows will create new tools, ideas, and news experiences that benefit both readers and newsmakers—all using open technologies.
Much to the enjoyment of the map junkies of the group, Hacks/Hackers NYC welcomed Michal Migurski, partner and resident cartography guru of interactive agency Stamen Design, to the Jan. 11 meetup. He showcased two of his “civic-oriented” projects, Oakland Crimespotting and This Tract, each aiming to make government data interactive and accessible for the public good.
Migurski introduced his company and shared some of Stamen’s past work, including Digg Swarm, which represented online buzz following the reported death of Saddam Hussein.
We’re happy to announce the second gathering of Hacks/Hackers Toronto. This gathering is right in the heart of holiday season, so we’re calling it a holiday gathering.
However, there will be no jolly men in red suits or mistletoe at this event, we assure you. Instead, we will have a handful of local hacks and hackers who will each entertain us with a short, Ignite-style, presentation. Each presentation will explore that special place where journalism and technology collide and will — hopefully!
Thanks to the 80-some of you who came to the Hacks and Hackers NYC meetup July 14. We’ve received a lot of positive feedback about the event. We’d love to hear your ideas for future talks about the intersection of journalism and technology. Leave a comment or email us at nyc[at]hackshackers[dot]com.
So on to it.
Nick Diakopoulos, a post-doc research associate at Rutgers University, talked about his work on turning data into information graphics games. One example is Salubrious Nation, which challenges players to guess the public health of a communities nationwide based on county demographics.
Another is Vox Civitas, which analyzed Twitter messages posted during President Obama’s State of the Union address. Graphing keywords on a chart showing time and message volume and adding a tweet window revealed interesting patterns. For instance, Nick and his colleagues noticed a spike about 28 minutes into the president’s speech. Turns out air force bases issued a burst of tweets as he spoke about funding for military family support. Search on the keyword “military” to see for yourself.
In conjunction with the Future of News and Civic Media Conference at MIT, Hacks/Hackers Boston is going to have an inaugural impromptu Meetup on Thursday, June 17 at 8 p.m. The place TBD, but probably in Cambridge near MIT. We’re looking for Boston folks to become lead organizers.
Out-of-town Hacks/Hackers, including Burt Herman and Jennifer 8. Lee will be there.
