Jacqui Maher of The New York Times Talks About News Interactives in Austin

On October 26, Hacks/Hackers ATX welcomed Jacqui Maher of The New York Times Interactive News Technology group to discuss data-driven news interactives. The event was held at the offices of the Texas Tribune, with food sponsored by delicious Home Slice Pizza. Jacqui demonstrated projects, including the award-winning Toxic Waters, and then discussed ways in which programmers and journalists could collaborate. See her entire talk in the video below.

News Hackathon Austin on Oct. 16: Hacks/Hackers/Hacking

On October 16, Hacks/Hackers ATX presents a day-long Hackathon bringing journalists, news bloggers, and government employees together with technology developers to create data-driven news applications, seeking and making sense of open data available from the State of Texas and other sources. The day will start with examples of data-driven news presented by Matt Stiles and Niran Babalola from the Texas Tribune. Then communicators and developers will form groups to define and build applications from sources such as http://www.texastransparency.org/opendata.

Lunch will be served (courtesy of Community Impact Newspaper). Other sponsors include EFF-Austin, GNI Strategies, Hacks/Hackers, funded by the Knight Foundation, Midas Networks, Plutopia Productions, Texas Observer, and Texas Tribune.

Please RSVP for this event.

Hacks/Hackers Austin Sept. 30 Debut Meetup Draws > 40

The Austin chapter of Hacks/Hackers kicked off with a social meetup on September 30 at Austin’s Pizza near The University of Texas campus. More than 40 communicators and coders got together for some pizza and beverage, with lots of promise that these initial contacts will lead to some valuable collaborations.

In addition to the socializing and snacks, there were door prizes provided by Gowalla, Texas Tribune, Austin American-Statesman and Austin’s Pizza. Many thanks to everyone who came out to make this event a success. Thanks as well to Christian McDonald, Matt Stiles, Niran Babalola and Jon Lebkowsky for their help in organizing this event.

In the works for Hacks/Hackers ATX is a News Hackathon on ¹⁰⁄₁₆ and next regular meeting on October 26 with special guest Jacqui Maher from The New York Times Interactive News Technology Team. Join our Meetup group, follow @hackshackersatx on Twitter and “like” us on Facebook, to stay in touch.

Hacks/Hackers Austin plans first event

Hacks/Hackers Austin will hold its first meetup Thursday, September 30 from 6-8 p.m. at Austin’s Pizza on the Drag (2324 Guadalupe, Austin 78705). Join us upstairs in the bar for free pizza and drinks (while drink tickets last/cash bar thereafter) and great conversation. It’s a very cool room with windows all around overlooking UT. Stay tuned for more details and surprises. Please RSVP for this event! The Austin chapter is the seventh group, after San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, London, Boston and Chicago.