Code4Democracy hackathon offers R25,000 in prizes

[Justin Arenstein]

Hi everyone,

This civic hackathon will probably be of interest to anyone in Cape Town. 

R25,000 UP FOR GRABS IN CODE4DEMOCRACY HACKATHON

Do you want to use your tech skills or design talents to change South Africa? Digital activists, designers, developers and data journalists will kickstart South Africa’s open data movement this weekend at a 48hr hackathon in Cape Town.

The Code4Democracy gathering will prizes totaling R25,000 for web and software applications that help make government more accountable, by empowering ordinary citizens, making government more transparent, or making public services more efficient and open.

Participants will get access to previously difficult to find databases, including the national and Cape Town budgets, salary scales for politicians, health data, and contact information for constituency representatives to use as ‘feedstock’ for their hackathon ideas. Project teams are also welcome to bring or source their own datasets, or to instead build digital projects that don’t use data and instead use crowdsourcing or other civic engagement strategies.

Anyone who has an idea and hopes to recruit teams to build it, is being encouraged to post project outlines on an ideas forum on Code4Democracy website ahead of the event.

If you're interested in helping to re-imagine the way that citizens hold their government accountable, go here to register your seat.