Xavier Damman has launched the first meeting of #hackdemocracy in Brussels. They will meet on Thursday at the BetaGroup Coworking Brusselsto discuss about how to develop a community of hackers and workers in public institutions who care about the future of our democracies.
These are the projects and Hacks that will be presented:

  • “Pirate Party, Wikileaks & the Anonymous”
    By @jurgenvoltaren
  • “Open data in public-private partnerships: how citizens can become true watchdogs”
    By @jonvanparys from @WheresMyVillo 
  • “TweetYourMep.eu: Connecting citizens to MEPs all over Europe”
    By @acoomans 
  • “Democracy-hacking and TEDx”
    By @mishachellam 
  • iRail: using openData to provide a better service to SNCB/MMBS commuters
    By @pietercolpaert

Who is this meeting for? In their own words:
“We welcome people who work in public institutions at the heart of our democracies. You have probably ideas of things you would love to do to make your job easier and more efficient. Maybe you also have access to data that wait to be publicly available in a useful format for citizen or for journalists and bloggers.
“We welcome Hackers who are willing to devote some of their time to do things that matter: expose more data, foster citizen participation, share the knowledge and work all together to find solutions to the biggest challenges our society face today.”
The meeting starts at 18h30 (6:30pm) After the short presentations (5 minutes each) there will be some networking and drinks until 9pm, when the hackathon will start with a night ahead to cowork. Its goal: to hack in teams and come up with an app before the sun rises!