#Hack4Congress SF – a Hackathon “not-just-for-technologists”

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Lobby with Friends was the ‘Modernizing Congressional Participation’ Challenge runner-up (photo credit: Wendy Maclaurin Richardson)

When the doors opened at 8:30 on Saturday morning, Code for America’s headquarters quickly filled with designers, technologists, and policy wonks who had a few things in common: 1) an urgent need for caffeine; and 2) a desire to fix Congress.

There aren’t many Bay Area hackathons that start so bright and early because, well, developers aren’t known to get the worm, but this was no ordinary hackathon. With
participants from myriad backgrounds and geographies, this “not-just-for-technologists” event had hackers hitting the ground running.

By the time the pizza arrived, teams had formed in each of the five challenge areas:

  1. Improving the Lawmaking Process
  2. Facilitating Cross-Partisan Dialogue
  3. Modernizing Congressional Participation
  4. Closing the Representation and Trust Gaps
  5. Reforming Campaign Finance

 

On Sunday the judges* had a chance to visit with the teams before hearing their pitches at 2:00 that afternoon. Teams were judged based on the following criteria:

 

  • Necessity/Impact

Is the problem clearly defined, and is the proposed solution likely to improve the lawmaking capacity, deliberation and responsiveness of Congress?

  • Feasibility

Is the implementation of the proposed solution technically, politically and financially feasible in the near term?

  • Openness/Replication

How portable and translatable is the proposed solution to other challenges that Congress faces? If the solution is technical, how open source and accessible (forkable) is the source code?

  • Accessibility

Is the proposed solution user-friendly and something that will get adopted by the community it is intended to serve?

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Judges get a close-up look at Project Lobby with Friends’ demo during their pitch (photo credit: Wendy Maclaurin Richardson)

The winning team MyCRS kicked off their project by asking the question, “How can we help lawmakers do their job better?”

Problem: Members of Congress and their staffers are overwhelmed with information and trying to make decisions based on the data that walk through their door and sit in their office. Generally, this means lobbyists and special interest groups.

Solution: Personalized dashboards that curate metrics to allow members of Congress to understand how bills impact their constituents. These dashboards would provide a safe place for users to explore policy options and implications.

MyCRS has earned a trip to Washington, DC to present at the final #Hack4Congress event on May 12. Team lead Kate Wing accepted the award saying,

“To me, this is a testament to the opportunity to work across different sectors to really understand where people are coming from, and design products that people can use wherever they’re at… [This weekend] gives me a lot of hope that America can be of the people, by the people, for the people, with a little better technology and a lot more compassion and empathy for what people need to get the job done better and smarter.”

Please read the March 23, 2015 press release from the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School to learn more about the finalists in each challenge category.

 

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On Friday night, theAsh Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School hosted a panel that was open to the community. Panelists pictured (left to right): US Representative John Sarbanes (D-MD), Elliot Schrage, VP of Communications & Public Policy, Facebook; Marci Harris, Founder and CEO, POPVOX; George Miller, Former US Representative (D-CA); Eric Swalwell, US Representative (D-CA)  (photo credit: Wendy Maclaurin Richardson)

*Judging panel:

###Hack4Congress

Microsoft was proud to sponsor #Hack4Congress SF. Thank you to all the other sponsors and partners that brought #Hack4Congress to San Francisco and made this inaugural event such a success.