This weekend, patriotism gets a technical upgrade as civic hackers and open government advocates all across the U.S. will participate in National Day of Civic Hacking events. At Sunlight, we've witnessed (and encouraged!) the growth of the community of civic hackers, and are proud to sponsor and participate in several events this weekend.
Will we see you there?
OpenGov Voices: Beyond the Big City: Think Federally, Hack Locally
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by the guest blogger and those providing comments are theirs alone and do not reflect the opinions 
of the Sunlight Foundation or any employee thereof. Sunlight Foundation is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information within the guest blog.
Becky Sweger is the Director of Data and Technology at National Priorities Project. NPP is a non-partisan, non-profit organization dedicated to making the U.S. transparent and accessible so people can prioritize and influence how their tax dollars are spent. You can reach her at bsweger@nationalpriorities.org
Hack for Western Mass is happening at UMass Amherst on June 1-2—one of over 80 Hack for Change events happening across the country. We hope you’ll join us at UMass Amherst as we bring the first-ever civic hackathon to Western Massachusetts.
Isn’t Western Mass in the middle of nowhere? Can’t you just hack in Boston?
National Priorities Project (NPP), a national federal budget research organization, has long thought about how our local community can benefit from the open data and civic hacking movements that are quickly gaining worldwide momentum. We attend events all over the country, and as transparency champions, we applaud when DC hacks its municipal code, Philly gets a Chief Data Officer, and Chicago starts posting data on Github.
Please Vote for Sunlight’s “Civic Hacking in Pursuit of Democracy” Video
Here’s an appeal for our readers: please help Sunlight spread the news of the great work civic hackers do as far and wide as possible by voting for our storytelling video in the Looking@Democracy contest organized by the Illinois Humanities Council with support from the MacArthur Foundation. (Voting ends May 16.) We couldn’t wait to tell this (previously) untold story through a short video to demonstrate how the nascent movement of civic hackers are creating apps and tools using open government data to make their communities better. These men and women are equipped with laptops, open data and creative ideas to positively reconstruct the way we relate with government.
Continue readingOpenGov Voices: Hack Jersey hackathon — public data solving problems
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by the guest blogger and those providing comments are theirs alone and do not reflect the opinions of the Sunlight Foundation or any employee thereof. Sunlight Foundation is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information within the guest blog.
Tom Meagher is the co-founder of Hack Jersey and the data editor at Digital First Media's Project Thunderdome in New York City. 
His team builds interactive news applications, supports computer-assisted reporting projects in local newsrooms and offers training. He served as the data editor for The Star-Ledger in Newark, and he lives with his family in suburban New Jersey. Reach him at @ultracasual or @hackjersey.
Wrapped by the hanging air quotes of New York City and Philadelphia, New Jersey's history of invention and investigative reporting tends to get overlooked. Even within the state, the two disciplines haven't acknowledged each other much. In recent years, there've been hackathons at local colleges or tech groups, but the Garden State's journalists never really mingled with programmers or dipped their toes into building news applications. Until now.
This winter, Hack Jersey held the state's first news hackathon and attracted dozens of journalists and developers to learn from and compete with one another. Sponsored by the NJ News Commons, Knight-Mozilla's OpenNews and many other organizations, the hackathon revolved around a simple (and maybe obvious) idea. By bringing coders and journalists together to use public data and solve problems, we could sow the seeds for an amazing new community here.
Continue readingRecap: Open Data Day Boston
This post was written by Shauna Gordon-McKeon co-organizer of the Open Government Boston group. On February 23, Sunlight Boston together... View Article
Continue readingOpen Data Day DC, 2013
A couple Saturdays ago, I helped Josh Tauberer, Kat Townsend, Dmitri Kachaev, Sam Lee, and Julia Bezgacheva organize a hackathon... View Article
Continue readingComing to a City Near You: Open Data Day
The third annual International Open Data Hackathon is this Saturday, and it’s an exciting opportunity to explore what’s possible with... View Article
Continue readingOpenGov Champions: Shea Frederick, Baltimore, MD
Meet Shea Frederick, our latest OpenGov Champion. Last September, Sunlight’s video team — myself and Associate Video Producer Solay Howell... View Article
Continue readingRegister Now for Big Money, Big Data and Datafest Hackathon Feb 2-3, 2013
Calling all open government, journalism and data geeks. Please join Sunlight and friends in a bicoastal hackathon on the campuses of Stanford University and Columbia University on Feb 2-3, 2013. Registration is now open.
Together, we will tackle how to create apps and sites that show what 2012’s political spending spree will mean for policy in 2013 and beyond.
Register now.
Do you write code or work with data? Do you want to learn how or enhance your skills? Join us to mine data for stories and visualizations that will help understand how money affects the issues that Congress and state legislatures will be taking up this year. Showcase your skills and knowledge and compete to win prizes.
Open States API at Hacks for Democracy in Philadelphia
This month, the first Hacks for Democracy event has been ongoing in Philadelphia. A new hackathon idea, #hacks4d hopes to... View Article
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