"Hacking for Humanity"

“Hacking for Humanity”—never thought you’d hear that phrase, right? Well, Google, Microsoft, NASA, The World Bank, and Yahoo! have joined forces to turn that into a reality and bring us Random Hacks of Kindness, an initiative that brings together the sustainable development, disaster risk management, and software developer communities to solve real-world problems with technology.

After a successful inaugural event last year in California that produced software solutions used during the recent earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, the partners have decided to take the effort global. Random Hacks of Kindness is gearing up for its first worldwide “Hackathon for Humanity” on June 4-6, 2010. The global Hackathon will feature a marathon weekend of hacking and coding competitions geared toward developing software that saves lives, alleviates suffering, and helps communities to recover after natural disasters strike. Hackathon events are set for Washington DC, Sydney, Nairobi, Jakarta, and Sao Paulo.

The event here in DC, held in conjunction with the DC Crisis Camp and the World Bank’s Understanding Risk Conference: Innovation in Disaster Risk Assessment, will begin with a reception hosted by the Global Partnerships Office at the U.S. State Department and will be followed by 48 hours of hacking at Microsoft’s Washington, DC, office. Participation is free and open to everyone, so software engineers, hackers, students, and volunteers, grab your laptops and come out this weekend to put your expertise to work in helping to solve some of the most pressing issues we face around the world! For more info and to register for the DC event, please visit http://rhokdc.eventbrite.com/?src=2m.

Aneesh Chopra is United States Chief Technology Officer