The National Day of Civic Hacking (NDoCH) is an international event for people to focus on improving their community. Thousands of people from around the world will tackle civically-oriented projects around open data, disaster relief, mapping, safety and justice, economic development, and other topics.

Here in San Francisco, we will be doing a 3-day hackathon organized by Code for San Francisco and SF State. Urbanists, civic hackers, developers, designers, marketers, students, government staff, and passionate residents will join together to collaborate on new solutions for our city.

We invite you to join us: participate in the weekend, pitch a new project, lead an existing challenge, sponsor the event, or partner with us.

Eligibility

Focus: Project should be focused on improving our city in some way. The topics areas for projects might include open data, disaster relief, mapping, safety and justice, economic development, and whatever else.

Starting status: Projects can be at different phases (ideation, testing a specific component, a few steps before launch, etc.) With that, structure the weekend’s project proposal so that new individuals can contribute to a specific goal or milestone.

Project Lead: Each project requires a project lead to see the project from start to finish, attending the 3-day event. It is okay for two people to collaboratively lead the team (and split the schedule) provided they cohesively tie out with one another.

Team Size: You can enter as an individual with a project to recruit a team, or enter as a team with a project. With that, you must be open to having new individuals throughout the weekend.

Skills of Attendees: developers, project managers, community organizers, designers, researchers, marketers, government staff, urbanites, and generally active and knowledgeable citizens.

Requirements

Project must be:

  • Open source and collaborative (using tools like GitHub, Hackpad, Trello, and others to share your work)
  • Have a clear problem defined
  • Have articulated and tangible goals that can be met by a team of 4-10 people over 2 full days of work
  • Use varied skills and expertise levels
  • Be scalable and flexible to fit the team you can recruit to your project
  • Be open and collaborative

Hackathon Sponsors

Prizes

$2,970 in prizes

First Place - General Competition

4 Full-time memberships to Galvanize for 2 months & SF National Day of Civic Hacking T-Shirts

Second Place - General Competition

4 25-hour/month Impact Hub Memberships for 2 months & SF National Day of Civic Hacking T-Shirts

Third Place - General Competition

Complimentary tickets to the Exploratorium for the entire team & SF National Day of Civic Hacking T-Shirts

Fourth Place - General Competition

5 copies of "Coined: The Rich Life of Money and How Its History Has Shaped Us" by Kabir Seghal and Free SF National Day of Civic Hacking T-Shirts

Fifth Place - General Competition

5 copies of "Haline" by Sundeep Ahuja and Free SF National Day of Civic Hacking T-Shirts

Devpost Achievements

Submitting to this hackathon could earn you:

How to enter

PITCH A PROJECT FOR THE WEEKEND

  1. Read this entire page to learn more about what to expect and the timeline of the event, including the commitment that you will be present to lead your project at the hackathon for the entire weekend.
  2. Design a project for NDoCH using the resources here.
  3. Fill out a project pitch form.
  4. Receive confirmation that your project has been accepted.
  5. Detail your project out on Challenge Post for attendees to see it before the event.
  6. Respond to inquiries about your project leading up to NDoCH, whether by interested attendees or by press inquiries.
  7. Pitch on Friday Night (trade show style) to attendees and recruit your team.
  8. Work Saturday and Sunday (with final presentations Sunday Night).
  9. Present the team's final work on Sunday afternoon to a panel of judges.

 

OTHER WAYS TO PARTICIPATE

Here are a list of ways to participate. Check out our 'participate' page for more info.

Judges

Ayori Selassie

Ayori Selassie
Senior Solution Engineer, Salesforce

Dan Parham

Dan Parham
Co-Founder, Neighborland

Peter Shanley

Peter Shanley
Evangelist and Principal, Neo.com

Andrew Hyder

Andrew Hyder
Developer Relations Engineer, Code for America

David Selinger

David Selinger
Founder and Board Member, RichRelevance

Judging Criteria

  • General Tasks
    • Identify users • Show supporting data • Complete a competitive assessment • Have either an MVP AND/OR concrete conceptual plan • List your next steps • Show potential civic and social partners
  • Impact
    How much impact (quality and quantity) could the solution have? Could this solution solve a big or small problem?
  • Product/Market Fit
    How well does the solution fit the needs of the problem they chose to tackle? How user-friendly is the solution?
  • Creativity
    Are there similar solutions available today? Is the solution innovative?
  • Sustainability
    How and Do they have a plan for next steps? How prepared are they to continue their work beyond the event?
  • Presentation
    How well did the team communicate the problem and solution? How well did they respond to the questions from judges?

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