State & Local Government Policy, Business and Technology

6 Traits of Productive Hackathons

Data-Smart City Solutions: When people think of hackathons, they likely imagine a dimly lit room full of young coders armed with energy drinks and high-powered laptops frantically writing lines of code. However, government hackathons and tech competitions, when done right, require much more than putting a bunch of developers in a room and letting them go to work.

When I was deputy mayor of New York City, I attended the NYC BigApps competition, an annual civic innovation challenge that invites developers, designers, academics and others to design solutions that benefit the city. The contest’s early years produced energy, excitement and some interesting, but not frequently transformative apps. Based on this experience, I have six suggestions for rolling out an engaging and productive civic tech competition.

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