Each hack team will be comprised of the following:

Team Captain: This person will be responsible for leading the hack team and middle school students throughout the hackathon. Team captains are required to attend the full hackathon on Saturday as well as attend the reception on Thursday evening. Team captains will be recognized for their hard work and commitment at the reception.

2-3 Professionals*: These hack team members will be expected to have a technical background and work with the other members during the hackathon.

2-3 College Students*: These hack team members will be students studying computer science or related fields who are willing to assist the professionals as well as teach the middle school students on the team some basic technical skills (ie. design process or scratch code)

*Hack team members are encouraged to stay for majority of the hackathon as well as attend the reception but may commit to attending only a portion of the event.

Composition of Each Team:

• 3-6  technologists/technology students (that's YOU!) - after you rank your track preferences, we will assign teams, ensuring a diversity of skillsets and backgrounds on each team.
• 1-2 Generation Citizen Students (middle or high school students who are currently working on a community change project) - see below for the specific students in each track that you will be assisting
• 1-2 Generation Citizen Democracy Coaches (college student volunteer who is coaching the middle and high school students through their project)


TRACK 1: DATA VISUALIZATIONS TO INFLUENCE CHANGE

Track Description: Generation Citizen young people are attempting to address a major community problem (their “Focus Issue”) by advocating for a specific policy change (their “Goal”). To do that, they are meeting with local legislators, government agency representatives, and community leaders (“Targets”) and trying to convince these Targets that their Goal will improve their community. Students are currently using anecdotal evidence in these conversations with Targets, but could they argue more effectively if they also had data visualizations to illustrate the problem? Hackers in this track should help students compile and present relevant data sets in preparation for meetings with their Targets.

Sample projects might be: visualization of crime data by geography and time to influence police coverage, visualization of student indicators data by school to influence school resource allocation, visualization of grocery stores by neighborhood to influence food subsidy programs.

Students Who Will be Hacking With You in this Track: Students who are preparing to meet with government and community leaders to make the case for their policy Goal.

Deliverable: Prototype or full data visualization students can use for a meeting.


TRACK 2: INFORMATION COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES (ICTs) FOR MASS COORDINATION AND CIVIC EMPOWERMENT

Track Description: In many cases, Generation Citizen young people are addressing their chosen community problem (their “Focus Issue”) through a legislative route – they are trying to get state or local legislation passed or influence their state or city budget. To achieve this policy change (the students’ “Goal”), the students need to coordinate with hundreds of other citizens or community members, ensuring that other young people are also pushing for this legislation or budget initiative to occur. Students currently rally their own classmates to reach out to their legislators through phone calls or emails, but what if they had the tools to coordinate with other youth across the region, or even set up a process so that students taking GC next semester could pick up where they left off?  Hackers in this track should design ICTs (ex: frontline sms, Ushahidi, thunderclap) that would allow students to structure and track coordinated mass youth outreach efforts to legislators.

Sample projects might be: strategy to mobilize youth groups from other parts of the state to work on state-wide legislation, strategy to coordinate with a GC classroom in another neighborhood to jointly advocate for a citywide change, strategy for mobilizing youth at each stage of the budget process so that GC students in the spring can continue to push for budgetary changes.

Students Who Will be Hacking With You in this Track: Students who are attempting to influence legislation or the budget and will benefit from multiple youth voices advocating for their Goal.
 
Deliverable: Prototype or full tool students can use to coordinate mass youth outreach, description of process for implementation.


TRACK 3: DIGITAL STORYTELLING TO RAISE AWARENESS

Track Description: Some Generation Citizen young people have chosen to work on a community problem (their “Focus Issue”) that is a bit unfamiliar to those outside of their community, or they are advancing a policy solution (their “Goal”) that is complicated, confusing, or commonly misunderstood. To make their case to potential decision-makers or influencers (their “Targets”), students will need to provide some education about the Focus Issue or the Goal in addition to asking their audience to support it. Can students use digital storytelling to raise awareness about their more complicated and unfamiliar projects?  Hackers in this track should collaborate with students to design digital storytelling media (videos, blogs, photo blogs, social media pieces) that would allow students to raise awareness about a complicated or unfamiliar Focus Issue/Goal.

Sample projects might be: a video of student testimonials describing their community problem, an infographic describing the budget process students are influencing, a blog inviting users to submit additional evidence of a problem using a relevant template.

Students Who Will be Hacking With You in this Track: Students who are working on a project with some elements that are less easily understood, and who need to engage a broad group of potential supporters.

Deliverable: First draft of video/blog. Description of target audience and dissemination plan.