Random Hacks of KindnessHow civic hacking can be leveraged to spur innovation and create safer communities

Random Hacks of Kindness is an initiative that seeks to make the world a better

place by building a community of innovation. RHoK collaborates with subject

matter experts in disaster risk to develop and define problems, which form the

framework of a RHoK hack day—a marathon weekend event of competitive

coding, gathering software engineers together to develop software to respond to

global challenges and crises. A RHoK event brings together the best and

brightest developers from around the world, who volunteer their time to solve real

world problems.

Vision

Random Hacks of Kindness is a joint initiative of Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, HP,

NASA and the World Bank, as well as other government, academic and civil

society partners.

Partners

Development experts define the problems

Volunteers work on open source solutions

Annual Global Events

Weekend sprints & competitions

Mainstages with VIP receptions

Satellites focused on coding

How it Works

Impact

Time

June 2009@ CrisisCamp

December 20091st Hackathon

Silicon Valley, CA

June 20102nd Hackathon

Washington, DC

December 20103rd Hackathon

22 Cities

June 4-5, 20114th Hackathon

19 Cities

Dec 3-4, 20115th Hackathon

~20 Cities

The RHoK Journey

VIP Keynote speeches

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon

FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate

“Father of the Internet” Vint Cerf

Fast Growing Community

Events in 26 cities

2000 registrants

120 projects

Success Stories

Person Finder – Missing persons databaseUsed in Japan, Haiti, Christchurch, Chile by Google

I’mOK – Mobile messaging for disaster responseUsed in Haiti & Chile by The World Bank

CHASM – Mapping landslide riskUsed in the Caribbean by The World Bank

Media Reach

100+ news sources globallyNYTimes, Forbes, LA Times, NPR, Fox, Slashdot, USA Today

2010 Highlights

2011 HighlightsRHoK 3 on 4-5 June 2011Theme of Disaster Risk Management and Climate Change Adaptation

74 total solutions posted to RHoK.org

2011 Highlights

Example SolutionsSolutions emerging from Seattle during RHoK 3 on 4-5 June 2011Seattle was 1 of 19 locations that hosted RHoK 3.

1. Tethered Towers: Using a tethered high-altitude balloon with sensors/wifi

attached to it to provide situational awareness to ground teams in localized

disaster areas

2. Open211: A streamlined way to get community maintenance and needs

information to a centralized searchable database.

3. MoveFood: An application which matched food surpluses with local

charities using volunteers as the transportation as needs arose.

4. HelpSauce: Enabling small observations of many users to add up to large

observations by encouraging the use of “!help” and “!sos” hashtags on

Twitter, then porting those to a localized map of the geotags of the tweets.

5. iRespond: Coordinates the activities of first responders in a robust manner

via a minimal SMS network.

6. A platform to verify local ground weather data in Bolivia with NASA

satellite data

7. SAARAA: Providing situational awareness and rapid damage assessments

to first responders eco-Tricorder: A means to take publicly available

environmental data to the smartphone, and allow users to augment the

satellite or other global data with local measurements.

The Power of HackathonsNYC’s Chief Digital Officer Rachel Sterne (@RachelSterne) wrote an article about why cities should embrace the code-a-thon. Included here is a slightly modified (to include all government) version of her list:

• It will bridge sectors and connect the government and technology communities around a shared challenge.

• It will encourage collaborative problem-solving and a more open government.

• It will create a mechanism for the public to share feedback and ideas.• It can serve as a model for other governments, helping to affect

national and international change.• It will introduce creative and innovative concepts that could help to

evolve government to be more efficient and effective in serving and empowering citizens.

• It will provide both individuals and teams with face-to-face access to governments decision makers.

• It creates a precedent and platform for evolving government through open innovation and participation.

• It will serve as the first step in a transparent design process.• It helps remove subjectivity from the design process by clearly showing

what the public wants and needs.• It equips developers with the internal data they need to make user

experience decisions.

Original article: http://mashable.com/2011/07/22/nyc-hackathon/

What’s Next?New Website and Community ManagerCustom social network for collaboration between SMEs and volunteers

Opening to All Development RHoK Community Events focused on development themes or geographic areas

The Next RHoK global hack day December 3rd and 4th, 2011 with events in cities around the world.

Random Hacks of Kindness is partnering with companies, universities, multinational organizations, NGOs and developer networks around the globe to bring together some of the world’s most talented developers, who will be volunteering their time and working together to develop software that responds to global disaster risk challenges and has the potential to save lives and alleviate suffering.

To learn more, or to partner with Random Hacks of Kindness, visit our website at www.rhok.org, or email coreteam@rhok.org.

Get Involved

Nicholas SkytlandNASA Open Government Initiative

nicholas.g.skytland@nasa.gov| twitter.com/skytland | http://www.open.nasa.gov