Hack For Japan Project
“Hack for Japan” is a series of online events supported by a number of tech companies to develop services for victims of recent disasters in Japan.
Register for the event (in English) here: http://goo.gl/8Ohul
Background
After the earthquake in easter Japan, many applications have been created to collect information from businesses and individuals in order to assist with rescue and relief. Among these tools are Google’s Crisis Response page, sinsai.info, Yahoo! JAPAN’s disaster information page, etc.
Despite a large number of applications having been created, the applications are not very integrated with each other. There is an opportunity here for developers to collaborate better in their efforts in order to increase the effectiveness of the applications that are built in the near-term.
Many business and organizations already offer a variety of services that assist in developing applications that would be useful in a relief effort. This event is being held in order to remove some duplication of efforts, and increase efficiency of development among an international community of developers.
This is not merely a one day event, but instead a common starting point for a series of projects to help in the relief of Japan.
This event will be held basically online, although we had several venues to do offline hackathon on 3/21.
There are already tools provided by companies to assist in the development of websites and applications. We are recommending using existing technology to launch and iterate quickly. These technologies include various APIs, hosting services, and web services. Examples platforms Android or iPhone, Windows or Mac clients. The easiest way to develop for all of these things is to develop a web application, however other options may need to be pursued for offline tools. Service technologies that everyone can use are provided by Google, Rakuten, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Twitter, Amazon Web Services, Salesforce, OpenStreetmaps, Hatena Co., Evernote, etc. A list of available technologies is available on the Technologies page.
We are also encouraging developers to either consume existing data sets, or provide their own. It would be a great thing to have a large amount of public data, that developers could use and extend in different ways. Some current suggestions include PowerMeter readings, seismic sensor readings, radiation readings, internet latencies, road statuses, etc.
Event Summary
Ideathon was held on March 19-20th & Hackathon on March 21st
March 20 and beyond: IdeathonBoth engineers and non-engineers should attend this eventThis portion of the event is purely online, in which people will gather ideas, rate them, and prepare for the hackathon.We have setup a Google Wave (note this is the English version) for collecting discussions around ideas, or offerings from organizations. People should post things like “I really need …,” “I am an expert in …,” “People don’t need this …,” “I can offer …,” etc.We have also setup a Google Moderator to organize ideas and allow people to vote on them. This Moderator is in both English and Japanese. Note that Google Moderator has built-in translations, so feel free to post in either English or Japanese.When you post ideas or update the wave, be sure to mention your changes on Twitter, under the tag #hack4jp. Again, the Twitter discussions are occurring in both Japanese and English.
Attending online
When attending online, the first step is to login to the IRC channel, detailed below. Any immediate questions you have can be discussed there. General discussion will also continue there.
Hours
- The hackathon does not officially end, this is an ongoing effort
- irc.freenode.net, #hack4jp
Twitter
Wave
Projects and deliverables
Every project should be publicly hosted somewhere online (e.g. code.google.com, github.com, bitbucket.com, sourceforge.org, etc.) Maintain all of your projects goals, deliverables, and statuses on your project’s page. Be sure to tweet about your project’s updates at least at the tag #hack4jp.
Project Lists
- 19~20 March Ideathon summary
- How can we provide internet access to people who are less computer literate ?
- Consolidating victim info which each mobile phone career may hold
- Smile Hope: apps and services to make people smile – from Japan Android user group Kansai branch
- List of ideas from Japan Android User group Tohoku branch & Kansai branch
- “It was false info” app. Voting system for false/misleading tweets. eg:245 people says the content of this tweet is false
- Some real time content , because TV only broadcasting negative information.
- Supply and Demand matching system for. People who live outside of earthquake area post what they can offer, and people inside the eathquake are post what they want.
- Listing all evacuation place, and what kind of goods are in need.
- Earthquake tweet text generator. Android App to help generate earthquake related info with less typing
- Evacuation place real time status update – iphone/mobile app
- QuakeMeme – Real time twitter timeline antlytics and extract earthquake related url
- App to prevent people buying too many goods – Visualize which goods are widely availble to which area – so that people won’t become panic for the lack of goods.
- Some way to encourage people outside of earthquake area to keep encouraging support
- How can we help elderly people in the earthquake area to communicate information? Better infographic or announcement method.
- A site to provide old songs (to cheer up elderly people).
- Are there better way to update tweet with using less energy to avoid battery draining?
- Video message service from earthquake area to their friends and family. Some tv channels provide this service, but many people may have missed it. Should have some archiving service.
- How can we find out availability of communication network or power?
- There used to be a organization called “I Am Alive (IAA) Alliance”, but they were closed down. Can we learn anything from their exprience to make this more sustainable?
- Mind care after earthquake. Provide some checklist or information package to mobile phones.
- Can we send old mobile phone batteries to earthquake area? Their lack of mobile phone battery is very severe.
- How can we optimise website for non smartphone users?
- Can we provide social network to confirmation of the “anpi”. Not just name matching, but also face matching or hair style matching using photos.
- List of existing application.
- Can we visualize the ammount of radiation or how dangerous current status in a better way using GoogleMap or some sort of visualization library?
(Thanks to @makoto_inoue for the translation!)
I have other questions, or want to join a project!
We recommend you tweet to #hack4jp, to rally support, or use one of the other options above. If something goes wrong, you can email vicfryzel _at_ google _dot_ com.