Can you imagine a group of hackers working at a public entity’s office?  Well, supported by Hivos, this is already a reality in Bolivia, thanks to the #HackPúblico project promoted by La Pública through its open data initiative #DataBO.

 

#HackPúblico seeks to build bridges between technological communities, civil society and the public sector. The objective is to jointly develop digital solutions that support the process of transparency and accountability of state institutions.

 

This venture, which has been joined by Oxfam Bolivia, aims to make the information managed by public administrations available to society in user-friendly formats that are easy to download and use.

 

It is in this context that the Servicio Estatal de AUtonomías (SEA) -state service of autonomies- organized the first hackathon in Bolivia at a public authority on September 3rd. Three teams made up of developers and journalists entered their offices and spent the whole day developing application projects, using databases that SEA opened up for the event.

 

The SEA is a decentralized public entity of specialized technical services, created to support the implementation and development of autonomy regimens in the areas of competence, financial economics, regulations and information at all levels of government in a coordinated and sustainable way.

 

The team led by developer Williams Chorolque was chosen as the winner of the first #HackPúblico. The project will gather, in a open data web platform, all the laws generated by the Bolivian subnational governments. This will allow citizens to easily access and download the information.

 

At Hivos we believe that access to information is a basic right, necessary to ensure that citizens make appropriate decisions on issues that affect their lives. That is why we support and join in the co-creation of #HackPúblico, an initiative that will be replicated this year at a municipal office.

 

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