After the gorgeous weekend and the crazy traffic on the roads, metro, and sidewalks anywhere near the Mall, it’s safe to say that spring has come to Washington, DC. If you can tear yourself away from the sun, there are many interesting (mostly indoor) technology events happening this week. Below are the ones that caught our eye, and a full list is over at DC Tech Events.
Wednesday, April 7
8:00 am - 6:00 pm (and Thursday)
Creating GREAT Citizen Engagement Software: This two day workshop, designed for developers building social software targeting the U.S. Congress, will look at what this sort of software should include and talk about topics like data standards, currently available APIs and other resources, and what’s missing that’s needed to build better tools.
7:00 - 9:00
GeoDC Meetup: If you’re into maps and GIS, you’ll want to come out to this meetup. This month there will be several informal lightning talks, including one by Robert on how OpenStreetMap is being used in Haiti’s earthquake recovery efforts.
Thursday, April 8
6:00 - 8:00 pm
Understanding the Mobile Pyramid: A representative from the Washington Post will lead a discussion on the newspaper’s offerings for mobile web, sms, and apps, best practices in their area, and other strategies.
7:00 pm
Phoenix Bikes’ Annual Bike Show: Phoenix Bikes is a fantastic local nonprofit that teaches kids how to repair and build bicycles and holds open clinics to the public as well. They’re throwing a birthday party/fundraising event and giving away some bikes while they’re at it, and we highly recommend checking it out or making a donation to the organization.
7:00 pm
Online News Association Meetup: This month’s meetup will feature a workshop on social media targeted to those with a good understanding already on popular tools but who want to use them more efficiently and effectively to further their work.
This Weekend
Friday 7:00 pm - Sunday 6:00 pm
Citability Codeathon in DC: This weekend long code sprint will bring people together to work on open source citability tools, with the goal to further the capabilities of these tools so that they can be used to help push accessibility and accountability in the government.
Saturday, April 10
6:00 - 9:30 pm
Nerd Nite: Does spending your Saturday evening listening to people talk about the regenerative abilities of wisdom teeth, water monitoring techniques using macroinvertebrates, and the man behind the physics phenomenon known as Bucky balls sound like fun? Then head over to DC 9 for Nerd Nite for some geeky presentations, beers, and music from local band The Paint Branch Ramblers.