Retour sur la 1ère édition de Hacks/Hackers Paris.

“Comment le travail entre journalistes et développeurs peut-il améliorer l’information ?” : retour sur le meetup inaugural de Hacks/Hackers Paris

Le 28 août dernier, Hacks/Hackers Paris accueillait une quarantaine de personnes dans les locaux de la rédaction de StreetPress pour son meetup inaugural. À l’occasion de cette première rencontre, Colin, développeur pour Rue89, et Florent Latrive, journaliste à Libération, étaient invités à répondre à la question suivante : “Comment le travail entre journalistes et développeurs peut-il améliorer l’information ?”.

Responsable du développement des applications de Rue89, Colin est revenu en détails sur la réalisation de plusieurs projets, parmi lesquels un comparateur des programmes des candidats à la présidentielle, une application sur la composition du nouveau gouvernement ou encore une autre sur les JO de Londres.

Réalisées de manière agile, la plupart des applications de Rue89 sont construites à partir d’un Google Doc alimenté par un journaliste de la rédaction. Pour Colin, la sensibilité des journalistes de la rédaction au code HTML et leur proximité physique avec les développeurs du site favorise l’expérimentation de ces nouveaux formats.

En moyenne, la réalisation d’une application nécessite une à deux journées de travail. Cependant, une partie des développements sont régulièrement réutilisés sur d’autres projets. L’application sur la composition de l’équipe de France pour l’Euro 2012 se base ainsi sur celle consacrée à la composition du nouveau gouvernement Hollande.

De son côté, Florent Latrive s’est appuyé sur l’exemple de deux cartes pour démontrer l’importance “d’évangéliser” les journalistes : la carte de la loi SRU et celles des emprunts toxiques.

Réalisée à partir d’un fichier Excel récupéré par l’un des rubricards de la rédaction, la carte des villes face à la loi SRU est la première expérience de travail entre journalistes et développeurs au sein du journal Libération. Elle a ensuite inspiré celle des emprunts toxiques, qui représentait l’ensemble des emprunts proposés par Dexia aux collectivités territoriales et aux syndicats locaux. Florent Latrive a ainsi expliqué que de nombreux journalistes de la rédaction était assis sur des “mines d’or” d’information. Pour lui, l’enjeu est de leur donner le réflexe d’aller travailler avec des développeurs.

Retrouvez-vous tout les meetups de Hacks/Hackers Paris  à cette adresse : http://MeetupParis.HacksHackers.com/

Merci à StreetPress pour la mise à disposition des ses locaux et la captation des interventions.

Le meetup inaugural de Hacks/Hackers Paris a eu lieu le 28 août dans les locaux de la rédaction de StreetPress. Entre deux retours d’expériences, quelques idées et rencontres pour l’avenir.

Tags: apps, data, Libération, Paris, rue89

Hacks/Hackers Brighton: Open communities

September’s meet-up of Hacks/Hackers Brighton heard from user-experience designer and developer Aral Balkan, who led a discussion on identity, privacy and App.net, and Joanna Geary, digital development editor at the Guardian, who proposed five questions journalists should ask when thinking about online communities.

Adam Tinworth’s liveblog of Aral Balkan’s talk is here, and his report on Joanna Geary’s presentation is here. All photos are by Adam Tinworth.

The meet-up was part of the Brighton Digital Festival, a month-long celebration of digital culture, and to participate further in the festival Hacks/Hackers Brighton ran a pop-up digital newsroom at the Mini Maker Faire.

Identity, privacy and App.net

Aral Balkan talked about how a lot of free platforms depend on gathering data from their users in order to make them sustainable through advertising.

Balkan observed that the model of many web 2.0 companies, including social networks and web apps, has been to:

1. Gather as many users as possible and then approach venture capitalists to get them to lend money based on the number of users

2. ?????

3. Profit

And it’s the second step of “?????” where the model falls down, Balkan said. This is the stage where web entrepreneurs find they need to attract advertising to bring in revenue.

Users think they are getting to use a platform or service for free, but they give away their data in return.

Free is a lie. And the cost of your personal information? Your privacy.

Balkan talked about Google, Kindle Fire and Facebook before going on to talk about Twitter’s path.

The tools of  Twitter were invented by the users: @mentions, @replies and #hashtags, were all created by the early adopters. And developers built great things.

He talked through the process of the restrictions to the Twitter API and went through a list of third-party clients that could be affected.

And then he introduced App.net, a Twitter-like platform and service. (For more on App.net see this journalist’s guide.)

App.net is the result of “an audacious proposal” by developer and entrepreneur Dalton Caldwell. It promises to remain ad-free and open and in order to do this – and avoid the “????” step described above when a free-to-use platform must find a way of bringing in revenue – App.net charges $50 a year for membership.

Balkan said Facebook and Twitter are targeting the same audience as McDonalds.

It’s the McDonaldsification of social media. But it’s good that we have alternatives to McDonalds as not all of us want to eat there.

An alternative to Twitter is App.net, which users must pay to use. But it is worth paying, Balkan implied as he asked:

Is your identity, privacy and security worth $4 a month? That’s £2.50 – which is less than the price of a pint of beer.

That online community stuff … it’s all sortied now, right?

Joanna Geary, who is leading the Guardian’s digital-first strategy (and who also runs Hacks/Hackers London), proposed five questions to ask your editor – and maybe yourself – before starting any online community project.

1. Why are you doing it?

When at The Times, Geary received an email response to an idea she had proposed which stated: “Common practice is a factor we should consider…”

This suggests journalists should only try something if others are doing it first and then blindly follow. Would you put your head in an oven if others went there first? Geary asked.

There are far better reasons for launching a new project or starting a new initiative, she said. She urged journalists and community managers to ask: does it improve your journalism? Does it increase traffic from social? Does it get people spending more time on your site? Does it improve customer relationships? Does it help you get customer data?

2. How are you measuring that?

Geary’s next tip is to gather some metrics. The Guardian has been developing its own proxy metrics system during the past couple of months. Gather qualitative data and feedback and make sure you know the strengths and weaknesses, Geary urged.

3. Are you paying attention to the results?

Geary also said news organisations should experiment, keeping a close eye on the results.

4. Are you sharing what works?

Members of the Guardian’s communities team will give ‘stand up’ presentations in the morning news conference, they hold lunchtime talks once a month, there is formal training for journalists, they send daily and weekly emails of good examples, and the Guardian is soon to launch ‘community clinics’.

The idea for community clinics comes out of the tradition of ‘social media surgeries’ held in in Birmingham. “People who have learned something share that skill and pass it on,” Geary explained.

The Guardian’s approach will be to “bring all of the community team to a very visual place in the Guardian – the canteen – once a week and people can pop over and ask questions.”

Initially community clinics will be for Guardian journalists and staff, but Geary hopes they will “bring that out of the Guardian and include readers as well”.

5. Are you supporting them once they get the message?

Geary said that there’s a need to constantly repeat and reinforce the messages and lessons.

You need to repeat as people forget and new people come in.

Pop-up digital newsroom

Following the discussions on open communities and open journalism, members of Hacks/Hackers Brighton spent the weekend news gathering and sharing their skills.

Hacks/Hackers Brighton became ‘makers’ at the Mini Maker Faire, a show-and-tell attended by 7,000 people that saw inventors giving demos of their creations and encouraging others to get involved.

Hacks/Hackers Brighton teamed up with Brighton & Hove Community Reporters, a group set up to promote cohesion by sharing stories and encouraging links between people from different parts of the community, and ran demos to get the community reporters and people who came along to the Maker Faire ‘making’.

During the course of the day skills were swapped, blogs were created and stories were gathered and shared via a Tumblr.

The next meet-up of Hacks/Hackers Brighton is on 2 October.

Hacks/Hackers Austin: Innovation at the Texas Tribune

On August 20, Hacks/Hackers ATX, along with the local ONA group, got together at the Texas Tribune to discuss innovation. Rodney Gibbs, Chief Innovation Officer, and developer Noah Seger discussed the progression of Texas Tribune since it’s inception in 2009. Over the past three years, the organization has developed some of the most popular and heavily visited data projects including the state government salaries database and most recently, the Public Schools Explorer. It was a great group of professionals and students, and a lively discussion ensued.

Refreshments were sponsored by longtime member and UT Ph.D. student Lewis Knight. Thanks Lewis!

We’re working on some interesting topics (music-themed and Formula 1) for the next couple meetings with ONA. Stayed tuned to the meetup site for more info.

Journalism rebooted in Buenos Aires! #Hhba becomes 2nd largest chapter in the world

Around 700 people attended the three-day Hacks/Hackers BA Media Party, at Ciudad Cultural Konex, averaging around 400 participants per day. The largest gathering of journalists, editors, designers and software developers in Latin America brought together people from the interactive teams of The New York Times, The Guardian, and ProPublica, plus 20 international speakers from three continents and various countries in the region, including Colombia, Chile, Perú, Uruguay, Brasil and Guatemala, and digital editors from all of the largest Argentine media organizations.

The first two days involved 23 parallel workshops and the third day was a huge hackathon, where 250 people worked on eight projects. The Media Party was the largest event in the history of Hacks/Hackers at the global level, and captured the attention of the local and international press. Also at the event, Daniel Sinker officially announced a new round of Knight-Mozilla Open News Code Sprint Grants that will offer up to $10,000 for projects related to innovation in journalism. The event’s website: http://mediaparty.hhba.info

Among participants were members of the interactive news team at The Guardian (Alastair Dant, Mariana Santos, Alex Graul and Nicola Hughs), who gave a keynote and a workshop on interactive news; Tyson Evans of The New York Times; Justin Arenstein, media strategist and consultant for Google and ICFJ; and Dan Sinker, director of the program Knight Mozilla Open News. Workshops were also given by Al Shaw (ProPublica), Thomas Levine (ScraperWiki), Jonathan Stray (Overview), Karen Reilly (Tor), James C Burns (Zeega), Rob Baker (Ushahidi) and Douglas Arellanes (Sourcefabric), who also gave support to the HHBA Media Party website, together with local projects. Furthermore, we kicked off the Data Journalism Handbook for Latin America, proposed by Poderopedia, and presented a preview of CryptoPeriodismo, Pablo Mancini’s book. Additional attendees included the Knight Fellows Gustavo Faleiros from Brasil, Sandra Crucianelli from Argentina, Ronnie Lovler from Colombia. And also Miguel Paz from Poderopedia, plus dozens of regional groups. Editors, journalists, entrepreneurs, programmers and designers came from Chile, Colombia, Paraguay, Guatemala, Perú, Uruguay and more. Among local projects presented in the Media Fair were Atlas Electoral, Chequeado, Mapa76, Comenta.TV, DocuMedia, Educabilia, FOPEA, La Nación Data, Poderopedia, Tuiter, The Real Time, Viflux, ShowTimeLine! and Zauber.

Projects that were conceived of or developed during the hackathon, a collaborative working day between journalists and programmers, will be specially considered by the Knight Prototype Fund program, which provides grants of up to $50,000 for media innovation.

The Media Party was organized by Hacks/Hackers Buenos Aires, the largest Hacks/Hackers community in South America and the second largest in the world after New York (in quantity of members) The BA chapter surpasses chapters in San Francisco, London and Boston. Hacks/Hackers is a space for exchange between journalists and programmers to collaborate on constructing the future of news. It is the best meeting place in the world to build relationships and collaborate on products, services and ideals between journalists and technologists. It was created by Burt Herman (Storify), Rich Gordon  (Stanford) and Aron Pilhofer of The New York Times.

The event also included a visit by the LibreBus ConoSur, a project being run in collaboration with Creative Commons and Mozilla, which involves a bus of activists traveling through Latin America to share ideas surrounding free culture and free software.

Hacks/Hackers Buenos Aires has a base of more than 1650 editors, developers and designers, and continues to grow (1020 active members in august). Since April 2011, Hacks/Hackers Buenos Aires has held 17 conferences, hackathons and meetings, while simultaneously running dozens of projects and other ventures related to communication and technology. The organizing team is made up of Mariano Blejman, Martín Sarsale, César Miquel, Guillermo Movia, Mariana Berruezo, Andrés Snitcofsky, Sergio Sorín and Ezequiel Clerici, among many others. English translation of this post Jessica Weiss.

Contacts: ba@hackshackers.com

The event was sponsored by Knight Foundation, Knight-Mozilla Open News, Mozilla Foundation, International Center For Journalists,
Globant, Fundación Desarrollar Argentina, Página/12,  Wayra, Vurbia Technologies,
Sourcefabric, Knight Intl Journalism Fellowship, USLA -Usuarios de Software Libre, Eter, Fopea, TEA Imagen y NxtpLabs.

Hacks/Hackers Bogota Develops New Digital Map: Mi Bogotá Verde

Participants of the first Hacks/Hackers Bogotá hackathon gather for a group photo.

Mi Bogotá Verde, a new, crowdsourced digital map that will track solid waste disposal and other garbage concerns is just a few weeks away from going online in Bogotá.

Hacks/Hackers Bogotá developed this map during its first hackathon Aug. 11.

We got together with the idea of putting together a general environmental map, but as is often the case with a hackathon, what comes in is not necessarily what comes out.

However, we stayed on topic, and ended up with a digital map that will seek citizen input to monitor garbage problems in this city of more than 8 million people.

A screenshot of the map in development.

What is going to make this map stand out is our thumbs-up, thumbs-down approach to the solid waste problem, even in this first phase.

We are kicking off with just three main categories — good practices for dealing with solid waste, bad practices and verified reports. With time, the map will expand to include other urban environmental concerns.

In other words, rather than treating this as a crisis map around solid waste concerns, we will also show where and when something is done right. And we are using the open-source Ushahidi mapping platform to achieve this goal.

The slogan for the map, “Entre todos lo lograremos” also applies to the 20 plus people who showed up for the hackathon. We think it’s a terrific start for a chapter that just came into being in April 2012.

The mapping project was decided upon by a vote at the second Hacks/Hackers Bogotá meeting in late May. A volunteer organizing committee met periodically in June and July to get things going and keep the momentum up.

And when we all got together, the momentum was definitely there, first through our brainstorming and then with our get-down-to-it attitude from all who were there — a mix of journalists, entrepreneurs, designers, developers and engineers.

The group works up outreach strategy and more shares thoughts.

We divided into three groups to get our work done — communications, strategy and technology.
“I love the topic,” said Diana Salazar, who works in strategic digital communications. “And I think this interdisciplinary approach is important to generate optimum results.”

We had lots of help. HubBOG, which fosters co-working and entrepreneurship, opened up one of their workspaces. There was participant spillover from the members and organizers of Bogodev, a meetup group of Web and mobile developers and Bogotech, an organization of entrepreneurs and technology enthusiasts.

Luis Hernando Aguilar, standing, explains a point to other members of the technology team at the Hacks/Hackers Bogota hackathon.

The International Center for Journalists, through its Knight International Journalism Fellow in Colombia, Hacks/Hackers co-organizer, Ronnie Lovler provided snacks. Co-organizer Renata Cabrales, social media editor at El Tiempo, got us some great pre-hackathon coverage.

As an added bonus, we were able to be part of the hemispheric initiative, #hacklatam, that connected us and another Bogota group with Miami, Buenos Aires and Santiago in a first effort at virtual regional collaboration.

But even though our first hackathon is over, the work goes on through our Google group. Other chapter members who could not attend the hackathon are contacting us to get involved.

With the commitment of hackathon participants and the growing interest of other chapter members who want to get on board, we expect Mi Bogota Verde, to be up and running before the end of the month. For now, you can also follow us on Twitter at #BogmapaAmbiental.

Make history: Join the three-day festival @HacksHackersBA Media Party!

The planets aligned! The Media Party is coming Aug. 30-Sept. 1! Three days of keynotes, workshops and a giant hackathon in Buenos Aires. It’s an event bound to make history. Hacks/Hackers Buenos Aires invites journalists, publishers, software developers, designers and entrepreneurs to three days of keynotes, workshops, and a super hackathon to work towards building the future of media.

Star participants of the event include Alastair Dant, Mariana Santos, Alex Graul and Nicola Hughes (The Guardian); Tyson Evans, deputy director of interactive news at The New York Times; Knight Fellow Justin Arenstein, media strategist, Google consultant and ICFJ data fellow; and Dan Sinker, program director of Knight Mozilla OpenNews. Additional guests include Al Shaw (ProPublica), Thomas Levine (ScraperWiki), Jonathan Stray (Overview), Karen Reilly (Tor), James Burns (Zeega) and David Kobia (Ushahidi) along with representatives from dozens of local projects.

Hacks/Hackers Buenos Aires just surpassed 960 members, and 300 people are expected per day at the Media Party, which will conclude in a large hackathon, which means hours of collaborative work between programmers and journalists. Confirmed attendees include the Knight fellows Gustavo Faleiros from Brazil, Sandra Crucianelli from Argentina, Ronnie Lovler from Colombia and Miguel Paz of Poderopedia in Chile, plus dozens of local enterprises.

Hacks/Hackers Buenos Aires is the largest community of Hacks/Hackers in South America and the fifth in the world after New York, San Francisco, London and Boston. Since April 2011, we’ve held 13 events, including presentations hackathons and meetings, and have encouraged dozens of projects and undertakings related to communication and technology. It’s time to come and meet us.

The first two days of workshops will be offered to all international guests, together with local specialists in data journalism, visualization and data mining, like Pablo Mancini of Infobae, Mariana Trigo and Juan Diego López from La Nación, Mariano Blejman of Página/12 and Hacks/Hackers Buenos Aires, and Claudio Ruiz of ONG Derechos Digitales. In total, there will be close to 25 workshops. We expect editors, journalists, entrepreneurs, programmers and designers from all over Latin America, including Chile, Colombia, Paraguay, Guatemala, Perú and more.

During the Sept. 1 hackathon we will concentrate all the ideas produced in the workshops into one platform we call HackDash, created by HHBA. The projects developed during the event will be considered for the Knight Prototype Fund, which finances projects up to $50,000. To learn more about our upcoming events, sign up at http://meetupba.hackshackers.com

The meeting will be coincident with the departure of LibreBus ConoSur, a project funded by AECID, coordinated by ONG Derechos Digitales, organized by Via Libre in Argentina, Artica in Uruguay and TEDIC in Paraguay, with the support from Creative Commons and Mozilla, which will start a tour through four Latin American countries, beginning in Buenos Aires.

Hacks/Hackers Buenos Aires organizing team includes Mariano Blejman, Martín Sarsale, César Miquel, Guillermo Movia, Mariana Berruezo, Andrés Snitcofsky, Sergio Sorín, Ezequiel Clerici and many others.

Histórico: ¡Vení a la fiesta de tres días @HacksHackers BA Media Party!

¡Se alinearon los planetas! ¡Se viene el Media Party! Llegan tres días de charlas, workshops y un hackatón en Buenos Aires, Argentina, en un evento que promete hacer historia. Hacks/Hackers Buenos Aires convoca a periodistas, editores, programadores de software, diseñadores y emprendedores a tres días intensivos para trabajar en la construcción del futuro de los medios. El capítulo de Buenos Aires de Hacks/Hackers acaba de pasar los 960 miembros, y esperamos 300 personas por día en el evento, que terminará en un gran hackatón, es decir una jornada de trabajo entre programadores,  periodistas y diseñadores interactivos. Del 30 de agosto al 1 de setiembre en la Ciudad Cultural Konex, Sarmiento 3131, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Entre los participantes estelares estará el equipo del área de noticias interactivas de The Guardian (Alastair Dant, Mariana Santos, Alex Graul y Nicola Hughs); Tyson Evan, director adjunto de noticias interactivas de The New York Times, Justin Arenstein Knight Fellow estrategista de medios, consultor de Google y la ICFJ en periodismo de datos y Dan Sinker director del programa Knight Mozilla Open News. También estarán presentes Al Shaw (ProPublica), Thomas Levine (ScraperWiki), Jonathan Stray (Overview), Karen Reilly (Tor),  James C Burns (Zeega) y David Kobia (Ushahidi), junto a decenas de proyectos locales. También confirmaron su presencia los Knight fellows del ICFJ Gustavo Faleiros de Brasil, Sandra Crucianelli de Argentina, Ronnie Lovler desde Colombia y, por otro lado, Miguel Paz de Poderopedia, entre otros, además de decenas de emprendimientos locales.

El encuentro será coordinado con LibreBus ConoSur, un proyecto financiado por AECID, coordinado por la ONG Derechos Digitales, organizado por Via Libre en Argentina, Artica en Uruguay y TEDIC en Paraguay, que cuenta con la colaboración de Creative Commons y Mozilla, y saldrá desde Buenos Aires con activistas a través de cuatro países de América latina.

Hacks/Hackers Buenos Aires es la comunidad más grande de Hacks/Hackers de Sudamérica y la quinta en el mundo después de Nueva York, San Francisco, Londres y Boston. Hacks/Hackers Buenos Aires tiene una base de más 950 personas y sigue creciendo. Desde abril de 2011 hemos realizado 13 conferencias, hackatones, encuentros y estimulamos decenas de proyectos y emprendimientos relacionados con la comunicación y las tecnologías. Es hora de que vengan a conocernos.

Los workshops de los dos primeros días serán ofrecidos por todos los invitados internacionales, sumados a especialistas locales en periodismo de datos, visualizaciones, datamining,  como Pablo Mancini de Infobae, Mariana Trigo y Juan Diego López de La Nación, Mariano Blejman de Página/12 y HHBA y Claudio Ruíz de ONG Derechos Digitales, entre muchos otros. En total se esperan cerca de 25 workshops. Esperamos recibir editores, periodistas, emprendedores, programadores y diseñadores desde Chile, Colombia, Paraguay, Guatemala, Perú, entre otros países.

El hackatón del tercer día, sábado 1 de setiembre, concentrará todas las ideas producidas en los workshops seguidos desde una plataforma creada por HHBA que denominamos HackDash. Los resultados del hackatón serán especialmente considerados por el programa Knight Prototype Fund, que ofrece donaciones de hasta 50 mil dólares para innovación. Suscribite en http://meetupba.hackshackers.com

Hacks/Hackers Buenos Aires tiene un equipo de organizadores conformado por Mariano Blejman, Martín Sarsale, César Miquel, Guillermo Movia, Mariana Berruezo, Andrés Snitcofsky, Sergio Sorín y Ezequiel Clerici.

Estos sponsor acompañan a Hacks/Hackers BA Media Party

Lightning talks and a healthy dose of start-up projects launch Hacks/Hackers Berlin

Germany’s capital Berlin saw the launch of its first Hacks/Hackers chapter last night at co.up in Kreuzberg. Around 40 coders, journalists, engineers, entrepreneurs and curious individuals attended to witness five lightning talks before breaking out into informal discussion groups.

Among the speakers, who presented for a maximum of five minutes, was Knight-Mozilla Fellow Cole Gillespie and Thomas Zoechler of Zeit Online. They talked about everything from drone journalism — the latest fascination among cutting-edge journalists — to open sourcing the newsroom, and set the tone for a wide range of discussions that covered mobile news apps, content management, data visualization, breaking news verification and online journalist portals.

Marcus von Jordan came all the way from Munich to pitch Torial, a very promising online journalistic workflow and network tool. Torsten Mueller from MundusMedia spoke about his project, which uses social web correspondents to source and verify news online. Fin from Vienna, and co-organiser of Collid.es, took the article to a new level with his Luminous Flux concept while brave latecomers Stefan Broda and Özkan Ak talked about their stealth, SoLoMo point-of-sale startup.

All in all, a great spectrum of projects and ideas, and not all of them about news. This may be unusual a Hackers/Hackers group, but attendees responded well to interjections from chemists, investors, engineers — professionals outside the immediate field of journalism. This too is how Berlin works at this particular point on its trajectory towards becoming a start-up capital.

Lessons learnt? For next time, we’d like to see more journalists, more insights into how newsrooms are evolving, and more new territories staked out in which technologists can work alongside reporters and editors to build functioning, sustainable news enterprises. We’ll also shake-up the format to keep things interesting next time. The main thing is that there will be a next time! Watch this space or follow us on Twitter at @HacksHackersBER.

This report was written by the evening’s moderator and facilitator, Adam Thomas.

Martin Belam, Nicola Hughes talk digital divides and working with developers at Hacks/Hackers Canterbury

A new Hacks/Hackers Chapter was successfully launched 2nd July in Canterbury, UK: @HacksHackersCTB. This first event gathered an impressive crowd of 40, with a good balance of both hacks and hackers engaging in discussions about data driven journalism. We, the organisers Tom Foster Tom Foster and Lizzie Hodgson, were very encouraged by both the standard of debate and the positive feedback from attendees. Sign up now to be notified of future Hacks/Hackers Canterbury events.

Our first speaker Martin Belam of Emblem Digital and currybet.net, formerly Lead UX/IA for the Guardian, kindly transcribed his presentation in essay form on his blog here. Martin also took notes from our second speaker Nicola Hughes’ presentation of the top tips from her experiences as a Knight-Mozilla OpenNews fellow learning how to program in the Guardian’s newsroom.

Finally, Nicola also wrote up her presentation in a post found on her blog.

What follows is a synopsis of the event:

Hacks/Hackers São Paulo covers mobile, data and freedom of information July 16

Credit: Alexandre Diniz/Prefeitura de São Paulo

São Paulo, the most populous city and a thriving cultural hub in South America, will host the first Hacks/Hackers chapter in Brazil. A group of journalists involved with the National Association of Investigative Journalism – Abraji, led by Knight International Fellow of the International Center for Journalists, Gustavo Faleiros, is organizing the first meeting along with Everton Alvarenga, from the Open Knowlege Foundation in Brazil, and 3 other representatives from the W3C local office . The event happens July 16, 7 p.m., in the Folha de S. Paulo auditorium on Alameda Barão de Limeira, 425, 9º andar (See map)

São Paulo has a vibrant ecosystem of journalists and technologists working on meaningful data visualizations, active blogs and mobile applications. Some examples of this work will be shown at the first Hacks/Hackers meeting and the professionals involved will explain the process of creating the projects.

The first meeting will also try to identify potential leaders for working groups on data journalism, web scraping, HTML 5 and digital mapping, among many other subjects. One of the issues brought by W3C representative Vagner Diniz is the importance of the semantic Web and the need for media houses to start opening and linking their data.

The Hacks/Hackers meeting also happens just as Brazil has approved its Freedom of Information Law. Access to government data has increased the interest of media outlets on working with applications that help filter information and make it relevant to the public. Journalist Fabiano Angélico will present the main features of the law and its importance for people working to foster media innovation.

Follow @HacksHackersSP on Twitter.

To learn more about the next Hacks/Hackers São Paulo events and hackathons, sign up for the Meetup group.