NASA And High Tech Partners Host Random Hacks Of Kindness

NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver joined U.N. Secretary General
Ban Ki-moon to deliver introductory remarks at the RHoK event in New
York. Google Vice President of Research Alfred Spector and RHoK
co-founder Patrick Svenburg, director of government platform strategy
at Microsoft, also attended.

"The RHoK hackathons provide a forum for innovators to come up with
real-world solutions that can make a huge difference in people's
lives," Garver said. "NASA's commitment to building on its data and
opening it up to other users allows us to expand the tools available
for disaster response."

At a RHoK event in Chicago, a group of hackers worked to create an
application that will access mapping data from the Rapid Response
Database in NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer
project. The team found the publicly available land imagery after
visiting NASA's Open Government website, then worked to create a
better interface to select and review the imagery. Response teams
could use this tool to more quickly identify areas that may be
affected by disasters, such as flooding and forest fires.

The first RHoK event was held in Mountain View, Calif., in November
2009. The event resulted in applications that were used after the
devastating earthquakes in Haiti and Chile to help identify survivors
and help rescuers find them. The second RHoK hackathon took place
simultaneously in six countries in June.

For more details about RHoK events, visit:

http://www.rhok.org

For information about NASA's Open Government Initiative, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/open

For information about NASA and agency programs, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov

Source: NASA

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