Civic Hacking Hackathon 2013 Aug 24
This event has been completed.
This page will remain here to serve as a record of the event.
Open Street Maps Mini-Hackathon
The Dallas Makerspace civic hacking group is hosting its first mini-hackathon and we've picked an easy project that doesn't require any special programming skills. The mini-hackathon is open to anyone who wants to help. All you need is a laptop or notebook computer with a web browser.
The goal is to add location and mission meta-data to Open Street Maps for Dallas / Fort-Worth social service charities such as food banks, homeless shelters, and women's shelters. Once the data is in Open Street Maps it will be available to open source app developers for use in web and phone based apps that can help people in our area find and connect with charities that can help them. We'll provide a quick tutorial on how the process works and break up into teams to build lists of local charities and add them to the map.
Event Details
- Where: Monroe classroom, Dallas Makerspace, 2995 Ladybird Lane Dallas, TX 75229
- When: 24 Aug, 2013 @ 11am - 4pm (or longer if we feel like it)
- Who: anyone who wants to help
- What to bring: laptop or notebook computer with a web browser (e.g. Firefox, Chrome)
The Plan
Open Street Map (OSM) is a freely licensed, community maintained world map similar in nature to the proprietary maps operated by Google, Yahoo, and MapQuest. OSM already has a largely complete and accurate network of roads and highways. It lacks data on buildings, businesses, and other organizations but there is work in progress around the world to add this type of data. OSM has designed a set of meta data tags for social charities, such as food backs and shelters that help identify not just the location but the purpose and target users of services. The Dallas / Fort Worth area on OSM currently lacks this type of data, which means web and mobile apps designed to connect people in need with services that can help come up blank for DFW. We're going to change that by identifying and tagging as many social service charities as we can and making sure they appear on OSM accurately.
We'll meet up at the space at 11am and then we'll go grab some lunch together. Once we get back, we'll need to make sure everyone at the hackathon has an Open Street Maps user account so you can made edits. Then we'll provide a short tutorial on how to use the OSM iD map editor to put nodes and markers on the map representing organizations and buildings. Once everyone is up to speed, we'll break up into groups, maybe by organization type (e.g. food banks, shelters, group homes) or by work (e.g. people who make lists of charities, and people who enter the meta-data on OSM) depending on which idea everyone likes best.
We'll work until we run out of charities or until we get tired of editing maps.
