Philly Give Camp wants you for MLK day

Some of the largest service efforts on Martin Luther King Day occur here in Philadelphia, and the Philadelphia technology community is pitching in.

On January 14th, Philly Give Camp looks to combine developers with non-profits for a weekend hackathon at the Microsoft Offices at Malvern, PA. Developers get three days to help non-profits such as Philabundance and Milagre Kids School update their websites or build a mobile application.

“Instead of going to a soup kitchen or something that doesn’t utilize your skills, do something like this where you can you use your passion to give back to these charities,” says organizer Vince Paglione, 24, a developer for CIGNA.
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‘There’s a new breed of software developer helping local government:’ Governing magazine

Governing magazine on Code for America and the movement it represents:

As recently as 2008, few developers were thinking about writing software code, or “coding,” for cities. Now, interest in partnerships between independent software developers and cities has exploded. “This space was totally brand new and early, and it was very, very insidery,” says Peter Corbett, CEO of iStrategyLabs, a media agency in Washington, D.C. Corbett is the co-creator of Apps for Democracy, a contest in which developers competed for cash prizes to develop the best apps using city data from the District of Columbia. The first contest, in 2008, produced nearly 50 applications in the course of a month, at a cost of $50,000. The highly publicized event triggered a series of copycat contests in the U.S. and around the globe. MORE

Event Highlights: January 3rd – 9th, 2011

Happy New Year, Philadelphia. Surely you enjoyed those great Penns Landing Fireworks at 6 p.m. on New Years Eve and went promptly to bed. Right?

While the calendar says it’s the New Year, Philly’s technology community has yet to wake up. We only have two events on the docket this week, so consider it a slow warm up for 2011.

This week, NetSquared connects non-profits with news and Hive76 opens up for some quality time.

Let’s Make Media!: Collaborations between Nonprofits and Community Media Outlets - Join representatives from WHYY’s Newsworks and Philly Community Access Media (PhillyCAM) to chat about how non-profits can produce their own media. Panelists will show off examples of non-profit media while offering tips. Take it from us, it’s harder than it looks. Center City. 6:00 p.m.

Hive76 Open House – Every Wednesday, the kind folks at Hive76 open up their doors to invite newbies into the Spring Garden hacker space. We suggest stopping by to see the space while snagging some pizza. Spring Garden. 8:00 p.m.