Random Hacks of Kindness June 2011

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Are you interesting in public service, of  using you computer science, web development,  information technology and other “hacking” skills for the good of mankind? If so you may be interested in participating in Random Hacks of Kindness. What is RHoK?

Random Hacks of Kindness is a community of innovation focused on developing practical open source solutions to disaster risk management and climate change adaptation challenges. Random Hacks of Kindness was founded in 2009 in partnership between Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, NASA and the World Bank.

Since then thousands of volunteers have worked on applications that are already making an impact. I’m OK, an SMS service that lets people inform their families of their status, was used on the ground during the devastating earthquakes in Haiti and Chile in 2010. The World Bank is piloting CHASM, software for visualizing landslide risk, in the Caribbean. Other apps have received support and interest from governments, NGOs and international organizations around the world.

How it Works

RHoK works by bringing together experts in development and volunteers with a broad set of skills in software development and design. The goal is to produce practical open source solutions to development problems. Events give the community an opportunity to sprint on projects, but the community continues to collaborate around the year.

The group is in the final stages of planning RHoK #3, next weekend on June 4th and 5th, where hackers and subject matter experts will assemble in 18 locations around the world to address challenges relating to disaster risk and climate change. 

On the east coast of the US events will be held at  RHoK Philadelphia at Drexel University, RHoK Hartford at Trinity College, and RHoK Atlanta at Georgia Tech.  A full list of worldwide events is below or visit the web site at https://www.rhok.org/