We're going to do a Hackathon on Mon, 12/5 at Sports Basement Berkeley from 10am to 5pm following EAGxBerkeley.
- Who: anyone! software engineers will be primary contributors of course, but we will offer optional introductory sessions for the curious / aspiring developer. You do not have to have attended EAGxBerkeley to attend the Hackathon.
- Where: Sports Basement Berkeley at 2727 Milvia St.
- Note this is 15 - 20 minutes from the conference by public transit or car. We recommend taking BART.
- When: Mon, 12/5 from 10am - 5pm
- What: Work independently or with collaborators on EA-aligned project of your choosing
If you would like to submit a potential Hackathon project idea, please leave a comment!
As a Hackathon participant, be on the lookout for related events each day of the conference:
- On Friday evening, we'll meet for a social around dinner time
- On Saturday, we'll have a speed networking event for Software Engineers
- On Sunday, we'll have a Hackathon Q&A and planning session
The scheduled events for the Hackathon will begin Monday at 10am when Sports Basement Berkeley opens to participants.
- 10am — venue opens
- 10:15 — opening talk
- 10:30 — project pitches — people with ideas can share those to the group
- 10:45 — start work
- 12pm — lunch
- 4:55 — wrap up
We will also be offering optional 45-minute learning sessions:
- 10:45 — basics of git (for newcomers to coding)
- 1pm — setting up your development environment (for newcomers)
- 2pm — intro to frontend development (for everyone)
- 3pm — intro to backend development (for everyone)
These talks will be at a separate table so that we are minimally disruptive to people who are still working.
In terms of projects, we hope people will work on things that they find to be interesting and potentially impactful. Keep in mind, there may be the option to continue collaborating virtually, so don't limit the scope of your ambitions to what can be accomplished in a single day.
We hope you'll join us for the EA Hackathon! Please complete this Expression of Interest form and consider signing up for the EA Software Engineering mailing list. And don't forget to apply to EAGxBerkeley if you want to go to that too.
Web app implementing giving pledges based on net income (after taxes and benefits)
The Giving What We Can Pledge is 10% of pre-tax income, if giving is tax-deductible, or 10% of post-tax income otherwise. We've scoped a different pledge, in which one gives the amount such that their net income after taxes and benefits falls 10%. You can also think of this as transferring 10% of your consumption to effective charity.
We propose building a web app where people enter their household information and it suggests the amount to give. The app would call the free, open source PolicyEngine API to compute taxes and benefits (I am the Executive Director of PolicyEngine, a nonprofit). I think in a day we can build a simple US prototype that collects a handful of data points (earnings, family size, state) and displays the computation.
I've discussed this idea with Luke Freeman, Executive Director of Giving What We Can, who supported experimenting with it.
Thanks for the project submission, Max