Hacks/Hackers Connect comes to Brussels

Happy Friday, hacks and hackers! We’re excited to bring the Connect series to Brussels in just two weeks. Connect Brussels is a pan-European event with participants attending from across the EU. Like all Connect events the focus is on building a vibrant media entrepreneurship community — only a few spots remain, so register today and spread the word to your colleagues in the region.

The week ahead:

• Nairobi is holding a discussion to coincide with the World Humanitarian Summit
• Warsaw is hosting four speakers ranging from a fashion blogger to an archaeologist
• Miami and IRE are holding their regular weekly open labs
• Denmark is holding a #NICAR16 roundup
• Brisbane is scraping websites with OpenAustralia
• Colorado is discussing social media with the Journalism & Women Symposium (JAWS)
• Johannesburg is holding the second part of its #HacktheConstitution event

Chapter spotlight:

South Africa’s constitution turned 20 years old last week, and Hacks/Hackers Johannesburg celebrated by holding a hackathon to make it more understandable and accessible. Next week, they’ll continue #HacktheConstitution in conjunction with TEDxJohannesburg and Design Share Party.

Co-organizer Adam Oxford said the initial meeting was geared toward gauging a level of commitment to this project, before the group hosts a series of several more.

“Our meetup was really a starting point for a project – an app or event that can be used to teach people about the SA constitution – that we think will be quite big by the time we finish it. Originally we’d hoped to have some structure in place by the end of the evening, but actually most people wanted to talk around the underlying issue in small groups.

This turned out to be really helpful, as the more people talked, the more committed they became to getting involved. Don’t be afraid to let people talk.”

Worth a read:

• Similar to Johannesburg, Knight and Columbia University are teaming up to study the U.S. Constitution in the digital age (Poynter)
• “Algorithms aren’t neutral,” Zeynep Tufekci writes about Facebook’s click-biased code (NYTimes)
• On a similar note, almost half of social media users don’t know where the articles they read originally appeared (Digiday)
• Thirty news organizations in San Francisco are planning a one-day “wave” of homelessness coverage (NYTimes)

Job openings:

• Africa:
• Open Data Durban is seeking a community manager in South Africa
• North America:
• McClatchy is looking for a full-stack developer to join its research team in Washington, D.C.
• OpenSecrets is hiring a reporter to cover money in politics also in Washington, D.C.
• Think tank New America Foundation is hiring a research associate
• Asia:
• BuzzFeed is looking for a commissioning editor in India
• Europe:
• Polling company YouGov wants to hire a data journalist in London

Other upcoming events:

• June 1 – San Francisco, USA – The Solutions Journalism Network relaunch and opening party
• June 1-2 – Brussels, Belgium – Hacks/Hackers Connect Brussels
• June 3 – Toronto, Canada – Solutions Journalism workshop
• June 3-5 – Mechelen, Belgium – Dataharvest, the European Investigative Journalism Conference
• June 16-19 – New Orleans, USA – Investigative Reporters and Editors conference