[open-economics] Open Interests Europe Hackathon in London, 24-25 November

[Velichka Dimitrova]

[Apologies for cross-posting]

Dear all,

We would like to invite you to a Hackathon about lobbyists' interests and
influences which shape the policy of the EU. Open Interests Europe
Hackathon<http://okfnlabs.org/events/hackdays/lobbying.html>will take
place in the
* Google Campus Café in London* (4-5 Bonhill Str., EC2A 4BX London) on
*November
24-25*. Developers, designers and statisticians are especially welcome.

How EU money is spent is an issue that concerns everyone who pays taxes to
the EU. As the influence of Brussels lobbyists grows, it is increasingly
important to draw the connections between lobbying, policy-making and
funding. Journalists and activists need browsable databases, tools and
platforms to investigate lobbyists’ influence and where the money goes in
the EU. Join us and help build these tools!

What are some of the challenges are we working on?

*The Lobby Transparency Challenge*

Within any political process there are many interests wanting to be heard –
companies, trade unions, NGOs – and Brussels is no exception. Corporate
Europe Observatory, Friends of the Earth Europe and LobbyControl have begun
to data-mine the lobby registers of the European Commission and of the
European Parliament to find out who the lobbyists are, what they want and
how much they are investing. You will have the exclusive opportunity to
work with this data before it is made public in their upcoming portal. What
can you do with this data?

 Group leader: Erik Wesselius <https://twitter.com/erikwesselius> is one of
the co-founders of Corporate Europe Observatory. In the past few years,
Erik has focused on issues related to lobbying transparency and regulation
as well as EU economic governance.

*The Fish Subsidies Challenge*

Subsidies paid to owners of fishing vessels and others working in the
fishing industry under the European Union’s common fisheries policy amount
to approximately €1 billion a year. EU Transparency gathered detailed data
relating to payments and recipients of fisheries subsidies in every EU
member state from multiple sources, from European Commission databases to
member state government databases and inter-governmental fishery
organizations such as ICCAT. What can you do with this data?

Group leader: Jack Thurston <http://jackthurston.com/> is policy analyst,
activist, writer and broadcaster. He is co-founder of FarmSubsidy.org,
winner of a Freedom of Information Award from Investigative Reporters and
Editors.

*Prizes and Jury*

All participants will get the satisfaction of contributing to a cause that
affects us all! Not only that, the winning team will be awarded a 100 EUR
Amazon voucher, pre-ordered copies of the movie The Brus$els Business – Who
Runs the European Union? (to be released this autumn) and copies of The
Data Journalism Handbook.

The Jury members are Rufus Pollock, co-Founder and Director of the Open
Knowledge Foundation and Alastair Dant, Lead Interactive Technologist for
the Guardian.

Read more details at: http://blog.okfn.org/2012/10/15/openinterests/
<http://blog.okfn.org/2012/10/15/openinterests/>

and the event's webpage: http://okfnlabs.org/events/hackdays/lobbying.html

Register for the event at: http://openinterests.eventbrite.com/

If you have any questions or would like to submit a challenge of your own,
contact us at sprints at okfn.org

We look forward to your participation!

-- 
Velichka Dimitrova
Coordinator of the Open Economics Working Group
Open Knowledge Foundation
http://okfn.org | http://openeconomics.net
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