At the ThoughtWorks San Francisco office, we have a deep commitment to support humanitarian causes and be a force for good in the Social Justice arena. We hosted the first Hack for Democracy hackathon to support technologists who seek openly to build technology for nonpartisan political oriented projects and initiatives.
The Hack for Democracy two-day event will continue each quarter and we expect that we will be able to expand the teams, projects and format. We partnered with Team Democracy, a nonpartisan group comprised of entrepreneurs, founders, educators, and technologists from companies such as Apple. At the beginning of the event, we heard from presenters like Jeff McClean and well known activist Lawrence Lessig, who skyped in from his home base in Boston, Massachusetts where he is an instructor at Harvard.
ThoughtWorks sponsored the food, beverages and the prizes including a month of free coworking space for the winning teams. ThoughtWorks and friends of ThoughtWorks were working hard including some technologists who stayed over night to continue working on their projects. During the event, we had a team skype in from Portland to assist with coding one of the amazing new projects. We were excited at the passion, depth, and voracious appetite for creating more meaningful technology-driven solutions.
During the event we had several politicians and hopefuls stop by. One of these candidates (Pictured below), Greg Coladonato, spent time with each of the teams, capturing insights and values in addition to contributing to the project teams. It was unique opportunity to facilitate open dialogue and a community hard at work.
Beyond the presentations, coding, and coffee we developed an interactive and challenging competition. We loved meeting and collaborating with so many passionate technologists in the community in San Francisco.
Next up for ThoughtWorks San Francisco is our Technology Radar event. We will pick a specific topic from the Radar and dive into all of the amazing forward-thinking ideas with special guest speakers and opportunities to network.
Follow us on Twitter @thoughtworks to find out about all our events.