Science Hack Day: Bridging the Hacking Community and Government

There is a growing desire in both the public and the government to interact on a higher and more meaningful level, and technology is enabling this to happen more frequently. Encouraging transparency and accountability initiatives and funding research that develops technology to enable these initiatives will be vital in creating an agile and participatory environment within big government. However to achieve this ideal participation model, both sides must keep the momentum and we will need more successful models and stricter guidelines on best practices for implementation. Commons Lab, of the Science and Technology Innovation Program set out to support this growing movement by hosting Washington, D.C.'s first ever Science Hack Day in May of 2015. The event resulted in two days of scientific and technological exploration, including a number of projects that are moving forward. One such project, PoliConnect, a tool to link experts and policymakers, has since reorganized as a limited liability company.