In June 2010, Google, Microsoft, NASA, The World Bank and Yahoo! joined forces for the second time under their progressive initiative Random Hacks of Kindness (RHoK) to host seven global hackathons, calling on a global community of hackers to solve issues related to natural disaster risk and humanitarian relief.

SecondMuse was hired by RHoK’s founding partners to be the Operational Lead for the June event, coordinating a marathon weekend of competitive coding by hundreds of software developers in Washington, D.C.; Nairobi, Kenya; Sao Paolo, Brazil; Sydney, Australia; Santiago, Chile; Jakarta, Indonesia; or Porto Alegre, Brazil.

After a June 4 reception at the U.S. State Department, keynoted by Google Chief Internet Evangelist Vint Cerf, often called the “Father of the Internet,” hackers around the world undertook to spend 48 hours intensively coding to develop software solutions to problems posed by subject matter experts.  Eleven winning hacks came from all over the world and addressed disaster-related problems such as landslide risk, situation management and triage, emergency messaging, person location and bushfire alerts.

“Random Hacks of Kindness goes to the heart of what we believe at Google,” said Vint Cerf following the successful Random Hacks of Kindness event. “That the creative and cooperative use of technology can help make the world a better place, collective intelligence is strength, and if you supply free food, developers will come.”

RHoK used video-conferencing, live webstreaming, Internet chat channels, wiki pages and every other means possible to ensure that over 500 technologists around the world were able to work together on software solutions, collaborating across time-zones, international boundaries, oceans and language barriers to create innovative, life-saving technology solutions for the world’s most vulnerable populations.

The chosen winning hacks from many of the global locations, have already received interest and support from governments, NGOs and international organizations and some will be implemented on the ground to contribute to critical disaster risk assessment and response needs as early as this summer.

RHoK’s first Hackathon was held in November 2009 in Mountain View, California, and resulted in software solutions that were later implemented in Haiti and Chile following the devastating earthquakes there in early 2010.

To learn more about Random Hacks of Kindness and to get involved, visit www.rhok.org.