[OSGeo Africa] reminder: Open Data Hackathon this weekend

[Gavin Fleming]

R25000 prize money up for grabs

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Hi All

This is a reminder of the Open Data hackathon taking place this
weekend in Cape Town. The press release is pasted below:

For Immediate Release: July 31, 2012
Contact: Greg Solik, ODADI spokesperson
Email: greg at nu.org.za
phone: 083 299 7717

PRESS RELEASE: R25,000 up for grabs in South Africa’s 1st
Code4Democracy civic hackathon

Do you want to use your tech skills or design talents to change South
Africa? Digital activists, designers, developers and data journalists
will kickstart South Africa’s open data movement this weekend at a
48hr hackathon in Cape Town to build web and software applications
that will help make government more accountable.

The Code4Democracy event is the first public gathering hosted by the
new ODADI (Open Data & Democracy Initiative) coalition, and will offer
R25,000 in cash prizes and tech support for ideas that have the
potential to empower ordinary citizens, make government more
transparent, or make public services more efficient and open.

ODADI hopes to spark experimentation by providing access to previously
difficult to find databases, including the national and Cape Town
budgets, plus Service Delivery Agreements and contact information for
constituency representatives, for participants to use as ‘feedstock’
for their hackathon ideas. Project teams are also welcome to bring or
source their own datasets, or to instead build digital projects that
don’t use data and instead use crowdsourcing or other civic engagement
strategies.

Anyone who has an idea and hopes to recruit teams to build it, is
being encouraged to post project outlines on an ideas forum on
Code4Democracy website ahead of the event.
The hackathon will be opened at a cocktail function on Friday evening
with a keynote address by digital thought-leader, Gustav Praekelt, who
will speak about the transformative  potential offered by open data.
Social justice campaigners campaigners such as outspoken former
national cabinet minister Barbara Hogan and health rights activist
Zackie Achmat will kick off proceedings on Saturday and Sunday with
short speeches highlighting ways for digital activists to make a
difference .

The initiative echos similar campaigns that have revolutionised the
way that civic debate and public accountability works everywhere from
Kenya and Ghana, to further north in the USA and Europe. ODADI hopes
to build on South Africa’s early support for the Open Government
Partnership, by inspiring a grassroots data-driven movement in South
Africa, giving ordinary citizens the tools and information they need
to make better informed choices about public issues.

ODADI is a broad-based volunteer-led non-partisan movement, that bases
its principles on the Constitution, and does not align itself with any
political party or other political interest group. ODADI’s manifesto
is available here.

The Code4Democracy hackathon has been made possible via a seed grant
from the African Media Initiative’s prototype fund for civic
engagement, as well as through logistic support from the Open Society
Foundation’s Money & Politics Project (MaPP) and venue and material
support from Cape Town’s Ndifuna Ukwazi center for active citizenship.
Other ODADI coalition members assisting with the Code4Democracy
hackathon include HacksHackers Cape Town, the Open Democracy Advice
Center, the Parliamentary Monitoring Group, the Right2Know campaign,
and the Silicon Cape initiative.

Code4Democracy will launch with a cocktail function at Ndifuna
Ukwazi’s resource center at 47 on Strand, Cape Town, at 6pm on Friday,
August 3. The hackathon itself will kick off at 9am, on the 2nd floor
of Ndifuna Ukwazi’s resource center, on Saturday, August 4 and will
run right through to 4pm on Sunday, August 5.
Judging of the best projects / ideas developed during the hackathon
will take place at 3pm on Sunday, with winners announced at 4pm.

BOOK YOUR SEAT
You can reserve your seat by registering on the Code4Democracy site
itself, or via the G+ event page or the Facebook page.
>> ENDS <<
______________________________________________________________________________________
For further information / public comment, please call:

African Media Initiative:	Justin Arenstein   |   082.374.0812   |
justinarenstein at gmail.com
Ndifuno Ukwazi:		Shaun Russell   |   072.111.0059   |    shaun at nu.org.za
OSF-SA MAPP:			Daniel Weeks   |   072.077.9727   |   Daniel at ct.osf.org.za