The Americas Datafest is a multi-city hackathon on migration in the Americas, that will be taking place from 2-3 Nov in more than 20 cities and 12 countries across the world. (see more at http://americas.datafest.net).

Do you write code? Work with data? Are you interested in migration issues? Work with immigrants? Come to the Americas Datafest at Stanford to work with computer programmers, policy researchers, local non-profits and data scientists to address some of the biggest challenges and opportunities related to migration.

Build web applications, mobile apps, tools and resources that will help migrants to manage their daily lives, experts to examine existing patterns and emerging trends, NGOs to provide services, journalists to report migration news and societies to combat human trafficking.

There will be food, and prizes for the winning teams.

Schedule:

November 2nd
10:00am - 10:30am: Breakfast and Registration
10:30am - 11:00am: Introductions and Welcome
11:00am - 12:00pm: Expert Consultation and Team Formation
12:00pm - 3:00pm: Break out for Work Session and Lunch (provided)
3:00pm - 3:30pm: Come together for Tea
3:30pm - 7:00pm: Work Session

November 3rd
1:00pm - 2:00pm: Presentations and Judging
2:00pm - 3:00pm: Prizes and Closing

Judging criteria
Judging will be based on the following 3 criteria, all scored on a 10-point scale:

• Usefulness: Project’s potential to help individuals, communities, NGOs, researchers, journalists, or policy makers.
• Innovation: New ideas and new thinking shown in the project. Creative design aimed at maximizing impact.
• Usability: User-friendliness, easy interactivity and simple updates. In the case of data-analysis projects, we’ll also be looking at easy-to-understand explanation of the results.

Prizes for global winners
Best Overall Project - $2,000
Best Mobile App - $2,000
Best Website/Web app - $2,000
Best Insight - $2,000
Best Data Visualization Project - $2,000
Popular Choice - a non-monetary recognition to the project that receives the most votes in a public voting