The National Day of Civic Hacking will occur on May 31 and June 1 2014 and is sponsored by Intel. The object of the day is for people to celebrate improvements by IT and to find projects in their communities to do that can improve their community.
Hacking is a term that has multiple definitions. Today the popular definition is people that break into computer systems and so damage. These are also called crackers. However hacker is a term that traditionally was a badge of honor to be called and still is. People that find additional ways to expand the possibilities of what a computer can do were traditionally hackers and are still called hackers by professionals. Sometimes you will see them called white hat hackers.
Many communities are planning events for May 31 and June 1 with some large cities having very large events that are more like festivals. There are also much smaller events planned in many communities. I am assisting with a small event in Rome Georgia sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce which we will look at some different solution software and also at trying to find a project to work on. It is not aimed at just geeks but all different parts of the population. There are events in Atlanta, Chattanooga and Savannah along with many other places across the country planned that day. If the events go as planned everyone from geeks to those knowing little about computers should learn and have stuff to offer.
Projects that other cites have done in recent years include a project to use artificial sunflowers to measure rain fall across a city and a project to determine better schedules for the buses so they ran more efficiently and helped a large number of people.
Hopefully this month in various cities a lot of new and different projects to be solutions to problems will appear.
You can learn more about the National D\Day of Hacking at http://hackforchange.org/