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Environment / Hackathons / Municipal government

These Chesapeake Bay hackathon finalists will present at the State House

About 80 programmers attended the DataBay "Reclaim the Bay" Innovation Challenge. The goal of the weekend hackathon was to build tools for stoking "public engagement and interest in restoring the Bay," according to its website.

Sunrise over the Chesapeake. (Photo by Flickr user Jeroen P, used under a Creative Commons license)

Four teams were awarded $1,000 prizes at Sunday’s conclusion of an all-weekend hackathon for finding solutions to Chesapeake Bay pollution.

  • MyBay: An Android and iOS app to improve awareness of and involvement in bay issues.
  • Chesapeaks: A map interface to help users learn more about the Chesapeake Bay.
  • Baybucks: A reward system for making contributions to bay-related causes.
  • EcoSleuth: An iOS and web app for user-submitted water quality reports.

The Baltimore Sun reports that 80 programmers turned out for the DataBay “Reclaim the Bay” Innovation Challenge at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Edgewater.
Hackers worked from 5:30 p.m. Friday all the way to 9 a.m. Sunday. The four winning teams will present Wednesday at the State House in Annapolis.
“The governor took a few of us to task and wanted more new ideas,” Mike Powell, Maryland’s chief innovation officer, told the Sun. “He was thirsting for new ideas for our environmental challenges.”

A screenshot of Chesapeaks. (Image courtesy of ChallengePost)

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