The Regional District office is the sight of a ‘hackathon’ involving local technologists

Prince George, BC – More than 20 local programmers, database designers, web developers and IT specialists have gathered for a workshop at the regional district office for the first-ever ‘Hackathon’ in Prince George.

The goal of the day-long event is to use publicly-released data, code, and technology to solve some of the challenges facing our community.

One of the organizers, Will Cadell, explains, "Municipalities publish a whole bunch of data that is freely available and easily accessible on the internet and we’re going to be showing people ‘where it lives’, giving them a few ideas, and, hopefully, by the end of the day, they might not have built something, but they might have put together enough of an idea that they might take away a project they can work on for a while."

Basically, it’s ‘hacking’ for the good of the whole community.  The theme of today’s gathering is ‘open data and civic applications’, with participants focusing on how to make full use of the data put out by municipal governments – whether it be to better inform people of garbage and snow clearing schedules, or seek input on budget preparations. 

Cadell says the Regional District of Fraser-Fort George was very gracious in opening up its office to host today’s event.  "The regional district was interested in getting people involved because they see the value in people understanding better how citizens view the municipal world."

"They have data they’re willing to share, but they’re not even sure if it’s useful or not," says Cadell.  "So they’re going to get this ‘mirror’, which is going to be kind of interesting."

This hackathon is expected to be the first of many, with future events focusing on health, or, possibly, the media.  Cadell says it’s part of a worldwide phenomenon to support/disrupt the way municipalities operate by using technology to see "how we can do things better, how we can collaborate better, how we can do public consultation better and use technology to suppor the citizens of a certain place."  Locally, it’s grown out of a movement called StartupPG.

"It started a little over a year ago with Shauna Harper and I thinking that we should really encourage more people to think about Prince George as a place to ‘do technology’ and a place to do technology business."

"I think it’s fair to say that it’s not been seen as one of Prince George’s key pieces of economy and there are people here in their basements writing an awful lot of code for people all over the world," says Cadell.  "And we just wanted to highlight that and bring these people together because, by bringing them together, you have a bigger chance of sort of more happening and more emerging from their efforts."

Cadell runs Sparkgeo Consulting, a geo-spatial web development company.  He says he does some local work, but the vast majority of his clients are out of San Francisco.  "We came from Scotland about eight years ago for the ‘big adventure’ and we haven’t gone home yet," he says with a laugh, but adds that’s his motivation for being involved in StartupPG.

"You can run a technology business from here and you can choose Prince George for a lifestyle – because it might be better for skiing, because you don’t have this monstrous commute in the morning."

Cadell says he’s hopeful StartupPG events will highlight that there is a community of technologists here, thereby, making Prince George attractive to other tech firms.  As well, he says, "It allows a little bit for more ‘group think’ to occur – sometimes it’s just nice to know there’s somebody else you can call up for advice."

Those involved have been gathering at monthly to talk business and technology.  It’s open to all interested at The Copper Pig at 7pm on the last Tuesday of every month.