18F Blog

The National Day of Civic Hacking is a great time to attend — or host your first hackathon. We’ve outlined some strategies for first-time hackathon hosts to ensure new participants feel welcome, and help them maximize their contributions.

Recently, three members of our team sat down for a conversation about when teams should start coding on a project.

On a recent breezy San Francisco evening, groups of developers, designers, marketing folks, and others convened for GovTechHack — a hackathon for civic good. The event’s premise was simple: To bring together people interested in improving the accessibility and transparency of federal digital resources for a two-day work session.

Accessibility is central to our work here at 18F. Read more about our accessibility efforts and how you can get involved.

A poorly written RFP will expose you to such risks as overbidding to compensate for uncertainty, vendor lock-in, and catastrophic failure due to miscommunication and misunderstanding. You don’t want that. The taxpaying public doesn’t want that. And neither does 18F.