White House Announces National Day Of Civic Hacking

The White House has jumped on the hacking bandwagon by announcing The National Day of Civic Hacking, an event that runs from June 1 to 2.

Twenty-seven cities around the United States will play host to various events where publicly-released data will be used to create “solutions for problems that affect Americans.”

Participating in the National Day of Civic Hacking are the Department of Labor, NASA, the Census Bureau, and various other agencies.

In some cases, very specific challenges will be posed to developers; in other cases, free-reign design concepts will be allowed during hackathons.

Helping to organize the events and providing their expertise will be Code For America, Random Hacks of Kindness, and Innovation Endeavors.

The event has been setup with a website called Hack for Change, which will “provide citizens an opportunity to do what is most quintessentially American: roll up our sleeves, get involved, and work together to improve our society.”

The National Day of Civic Hacking is part of President Obama’s attempt to make federal services available for public access. The POTUS announced plans for his open public access platform in May 2012. The goal of the plan is to create more data-openness between citizens and the US Government.

The Obama administration hopes that a more data open platform will help cut digital services costs over a 12-month period. Data is meant to be delivered over various internet connected devices including smartphones, tablets, and PCs.

Do you think the National Day of Civic Hacking will benefit everyone in the long term?