Cover Image for Civic Hack DC 2025 โ€“ Part 2: Making Public Comments Count
Cover Image for Civic Hack DC 2025 โ€“ Part 2: Making Public Comments Count
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Civic Tech DC
Civic Tech DC brings together volunteers putting technology to work in service of civic and social issues in the Washington, DC community.
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12 Going

Civic Hack DC 2025 โ€“ Part 2: Making Public Comments Count

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Silver Spring, Maryland
Registration
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About Event

โ€‹Build open-source tools to unlock federal regulatory comment data with AI, data science, and policy expertise.

โ€‹๐Ÿ“… THE DATE IS TBD - Spring 2026
๐Ÿ•™ 10:00 AM โ€“ 6:30 PM
๐Ÿ“ Metro-accessible venue in DC (TBD)
๐Ÿฅ Food, drinks, and starter kits provided.

โ€‹Please reach out to hack2025@civictechdc.org if you are interested in sponsoring!

โ€‹More info on our Website

โ€‹Join Civic Tech DC and partners for Civic Hack DC 2025:

โ€‹A collaborative, hands-on hackathon dedicated to using AI, data science, and data engineering techniques to unlock public-comment data and illuminate how the public influences federal policies.

โ€‹๐Ÿš€ About the Event

โ€‹Join us for a hands-on, collaborative hackathon focused on improving public access to regulatory comment data from Regulations.gov. You'll team up with technologists and policy experts to build open-source tools that make this data easier to analyze, explore, and reuse.

โ€‹No prior experience with federal data requiredโ€”just experience working around datasets and a laptop.

โ€‹๐Ÿง  Why It Matters

โ€‹Every year, thousands of public comments are submitted in response to proposed federal rulesโ€”but they're locked away in PDFs, spreadsheets, and inconsistent formats. Our goal is to fix that.

โ€‹You'll work with a 2.3TB+ dataset made accessible by Professor Ben Colemanโ€™s team at Moravian, updated every 4 hours and hosted on AWS. This is a rare opportunity to apply your skills to a real civic data infrastructure challenge.

โ€‹๐Ÿ” What Weโ€™ll Build Together

โ€‹This non-competitive event will focus on building reusable tools and answering key questions like:

  • โ€‹Who's commenting? (Individuals, nonprofits, corporations)

  • โ€‹What are the major themes or sentiments?

  • โ€‹Are there coordinated efforts or mass submissions?

  • โ€‹Which comments shaped final policy outcomes?

โ€‹๐Ÿ™‹โ€โ™€๏ธ Who Should Attend

  • โ€‹Technologists: Data engineers, data scientists, AI/ML developers, and coders of moderate skill or experience.

  • โ€‹Policy Experts: Government, nonprofit, or academic professionals who understand the rulemaking process

  • โ€‹Curious Collaborators: Students, newcomers, and anyone excited to learn

โ€‹What we'll build together:

โ€‹In this collaborative, non-competitive event, participants will develop open-source tools designed for reuse with any public comment dataset, past or future, exploring questions such as:

  • โ€‹Who's commenting? (Individuals, nonprofits, corporations)

  • โ€‹What are the major themes, sentiments, and sector-specific concerns?

  • โ€‹Can we detect copy-paste campaigns or coordinated submissions?

  • โ€‹What are organizations' historical commenting trends and motivations?

  • โ€‹Which public comments directly influenced the final regulatory outcomes?

โ€‹๐Ÿงฉ Want to Support the Event?

โ€‹Weโ€™re seeking:

  • โ€‹Partnerships: Organizations interested in co-hosting, promoting, and helping us facilitate the event.

  • โ€‹Subject Matter Experts: Individuals with expertise willing to serve on our problem review board and provide insights on submitted problem statements.

  • โ€‹Sponsorships: Financial support, venue donations, food and beverage provision, or computing infrastructure; including cloud credits, AI resources, and infrastructure support.

    Please reach out to hack2025@civictechdc.org

โ€‹No prior experience is required! just bring your curiosity, ideas, and laptop. We'll provide starter kits, roaming mentors, food, and drinks.

โ€‹Event image: "Librarian at Lektriever in Washingtoniana Division", from the DC Public Library Archive

Location
Please register to see the exact location of this event.
Silver Spring, Maryland
Avatar for Civic Tech DC
Presented by
Civic Tech DC
Civic Tech DC brings together volunteers putting technology to work in service of civic and social issues in the Washington, DC community.
Hosted By
12 Going