What is Random Hacks of Kindness? It is an initiative that brings together disaster relief experts and software engineers to work on identifying key challenges to disaster relief and developing solutions to these critical issues. These codejams are a series of Random Hacks of Kindness (RHoK) events that will bring the best and brightest together for a "give camp" to solve real world-problems related to Crisis/Disaster Relief. Objectives: These events are the first step in building a global community dedicated to solving disaster relief challenges through technology. At a RHoK Codejam, programmers will partner with subject matter experts to tackle “real world "problems. These challenges have begun to be defined and will continue to be refined during each event. The software created at these event will continue to be developed at subsequent RHoK events and openly shared with the international community. Our hope is that this software will address some of the serious challenges facing the disaster response community and evolve in response to their needs. Background: In May 2009, the first ever Crisis Camp bar camp was held in Washington, DC. During one of the opening sessions an industry panel including representatives from Microsoft, Google and Yahoo! agreed that some matters supersede competitive concerns. We agreed to cooperate to mobilize our developer communities to create interoperable solutions/code that will have real impact in the field. We have partnered with NASA and the World Bank to make this happen. Organizers: Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, SecondMuse, NASA and the World Bank are founding sponsors. |
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