Robots in Munich; mapping in Boulder

Happy July, hacks and hackers. Meetups tripled from last week to this, with groups building robots, making maps and hacking hackathons from Portland to Patagonia. Los Angeles also rebooted last week, with the first of a two-parter workshop on Javascript and D3. Let’s check out their meetup and others coming up this week.

The week ahead:

• Atlanta, Georgia, is introducing IoT
• Buenos Aires is planning the upcoming Media Party
• Munich is delving into robot journalism
• Colorado is going to the Google Boulder office for a mapping workshop
• Portland is discussing community and comments
• Rosario, Argentina, is holding a hackathon
• Miami and IRE are holding their regular weekly open labs

Group spotlight:

Los Angeles partnered with Codesmith last week for a workshop on JavaScript. In September, they’ll follow up with a second session on D3.js. Organizer David Caswell said Codesmith was interested in teaching the events because they get to demonstrate their coding tutorials to journalists.

“This is an ideal partnership,” Caswell said. “Coding academies like Codesmith can take non-technical journalists to a remarkable level of technical ability in a very short time, with a hands-on practical teaching style that meshes very well with how journalists tend to work.

Worth a read:

• BuzzFeed is making a beat out of debunking social media hoaxes (FirstDraftNews)
• Mic traced a meme back to 8chan, an anonymous forum, after it was tweeted by Donald Trump  (Mic)
• The Washington Post is experimenting with making a news community on Slack (Nieman Lab)
• The Intercept obtained classified FBI documents that outline rules for monitoring journalists (Intercept)

Job openings:

• North America:
• Public Radio International is hiring a data journalist and data editor
• Code for America is taking applications for its one-year fellowship
• Pew is hiring a senior research associate
• Chalkbeat, a nonprofit covering education, is looking for a growth editor
• The Connecticut Health I-Team is seeking a data journalist
• Mississippi Today, a newly founded nonprofit, is looking for a database editor
• Reuters is hiring a financial technology correspondent
• Africa:
• Uliza, a tech startup, is seeking a pilot manager for its new product
• Africa Check, Africa’s first independent fact-checking website, is hiring a deputy editor

Other upcoming events:

• July 15 – Toronto, Canada – ONACamp Toronto
• July 19 – Austin, Texas, USA – Front Porch, a conference for web design and development
• July 28-29 – Portland, Oregon, USA – SRC CON, a Mozilla conference for journalist coders
• Aug 25-27 – Buenos Aires, Argentina – Hacks/Hackers Buenos Aires media party
• Sept 15-17 – Denver, USA – ONA annual conference
• Sept 17-20 – New Orleans, USA – SPJ Excellence in Journalism conference
• Sept. 22 – New York, USA – NYC Media Lab Annual Summit, for executives, academics and startups to convene around future of media
• (Hacks/Hackers community members can register with a 25% off discount code: HACKSHACKER)
• Sept 23-24 – Toronto, Canada – Hacks/Hackers Connect Toronto
• Sept 29-Oct 1 – Miami, USA – Digital Humanities + Data Journalism Symposium