Do you live in Colorado and want to have fun playing with code, learn new APIs and datasets, and generally testing your coding “skillz” while under pressure and competing with other hotshot developers for prizes? If you answered “yes”, then I strongly recommend you check out the opportunities at the Hack4Colorado event which takes place on the weekend of May 31st. This event is part of a national civic hacking day where other States, Counties and Cities around the country are doing exactly the same thing.
The concept is simple. These events help promote open government data that can be used within applications that you build to solve everyday problems. So, these organizations provide you with cool data sets to choose from and you have fun building an application around it. Ideas include find the nearest rent-a-bike location, explore local hiking trails and so much more.
Full disclosure, Esri has also graciously offered to provide bountiful cash (yes, cash!) prizes. Other sponsors are offering Rokus, Kinects, and even Big Wheels (yes you also heard that right!). I even have an application in mind that I might try to build when I’m not helping other folks out.
What do you think? Hopefully I’ll see you there.