UT Good Systems, Facebook Developer Circles, and the City of Austin are partnering to address critical community engagement issues in Austin through a collaborative, interdisciplinary hackathon. The hackathon focuses on a commitment to create ethically responsible and societally beneficial technologies that enable the best of what people can do together to create positive change in their communities. With the City of Austin’s Public Participation Principles as a guide, hackers will design socio-technical solutions that can foster sustained and constructive civic engagement among residents.

Participants will have two days to create a solution that focuses on one more of the City of Austin’s Public Participation Principles. Participants will have access to subject matter experts with a blend of humanistic, social science, and technical expertise; deep technical knowledge of Facebook developer tools; and experience with facilitating community engagement with local government and projects.

City of Austin’s Public Participation Principles:
Accountability and Transparency
The City will enable the public to participate in decision-making processes by providing clear information on the issues, the ways to participate, and how their participation contributes to the decision.

Fairness & Respect
The City will maintain a safe environment that cultivates and supports respectful public engagement and will expect participants to do so in turn.

Accessibility
The City will respect and encourage participation by providing ample public notice of opportunities and resources and accommodations that enable all to participate.

Creativity & Community Collaboration
The City will use innovative, proven, and customized engagement solutions that are appropriate to the needs of the projects and the participants.

Who is a Hacker? Developing new approaches to promote community engagement requires collaboration among people with different skill sets, ranging from technologists to social scientists to humanists. Thus, we hope that you will come no matter what your background, as teams should include members with different expertise, so everyone is welcome, including social workers, librarians, community organizers, community service volunteers, psychologists, philosophers, artists, designers, scientists, engineers, programmers, etc.

*parking not provided