BCNI 2011 Open Gov Hackathon results and prizes

News production and technology are sure to continue to converge. It was why running concurrently with BCNI this year, we also organized the Open Gov Hackathon presented by Tropo.

“Journalism and coding collide in an explosion of awesome,” as Tropo developer and open gov enthusiast Mark Headd put it.

In the Temple TV studio, from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., three projects, with practical roles in informing communities were conceived, developed and unveiled, and all the hard work was celebrated with prizes, thanks to great sponsors.

1. As shared on Technically Philly, the day’s big win was the OPA Data Liberator, an online database of Philadelphia property owners searchable by name.
2. Code for America fellows polished off the Philadelphia Mural Guide, first shared at the Philly Tech Week Signature Event.
3. Headd continued work on his as-yet-unreleased side project: Philly Phinder, a text messaging service to find nearby locations of schools, libraries and other institutions.

For a day’s worth of work, ample prizes were bestowed, something we hope to do more of in the future:

OPA Data Liberator team members

• Team Captain Tim Wisniewski has earned a trip to the�Glue Conference in Colorado later this month. This prize, secured in partnership with the organizers of the Glue Conference, will provide a trip to the conference to represent Philly and the project itself.
• Team Members Adam Hinz, Joanne Cheng, Mjumbe Poe and Gil Raphaelli received Tropo prize packs, including t-shirts and swag, in addition to tickets to see the Phillies play the Rockies on May 18th, thanks to Drupal development shop Zivtech.

Philadelphia Mural Guide members:

• Code for America fellows Aaron Ogle and John Mertens will each receive an Amazon Kindle, thanks to Tropo.

Mark Headd, well, he receives the joy of the open government movement.

Thanks to all who participated. Look for other hack projects, organized by Technically Philly and others.

2 Comments

• Phind It for Me: Voxeo developer Mark Headd launches SMS service location tool — Technically Philly June 1, 2011 at 3:02 pm

  [...] text messaging service, which you can find around the world,” Headd, 42, said during the BarCamp NewsInnovation Open Gov Hackathon he helped organize. “This service could really give new people access to valuable [...]

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• BarCamp NewsInnovation 2011 recap « BarCamp NewsInnovation January 26, 2012 at 10:46 pm

  [...] Gov Hackathon: With the support of the Tropo team, we had a hackathon focused on tools that journalists could use, and the OPA Data Liberator was among the [...]

  Reply