Developing Latin America 2012 · Global Voices
Juan Arellano

[All links lead to Spanish language pages unless otherwise noted]
Last year we informed you, our readers, of the regional hackathon: Developing Latin America, organised by the Fundación Ciudadano Inteligente (Intelligent Citizen Foundation) in six Latin American countries. This year we decided to involve ourselves a little bit more and we are pleased to announce that we will be more actively supporting Developing Latin America 2012, which has actually already been launched:
Durante los días 1 y 2 de diciembre se realizará en 8 países de América Latina, y por 36 horas consecutivas, la segunda versión de “Desarrollando América Latina”. Dicha iniciativa apunta a convocar equipos multidisciplinarios de desarrolladores, diseñadores, periodistas, líderes de proyectos, emprendedores y ciudadanos motivados en encontrar -a través de herramientas tecnológicas- soluciones a problemas transversales de la región.
During the first 2 days of December, for 36 consecutive hours, the second version of “Developing Latin America” will be carried out in 8 Latin American countries. The initiative aims to organise multidisciplinary teams of developers, designers, journalists, project leaders, entrepreneurs and motivated citizens to find- through technological tools- solutions to a cross-section of problems in the region.
The countries where Developing Latin America, or #DAL2012, will take place are: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay. In each country there will be an institution in charge of organising the local event: in Argentina, Wingu; in Bolivia, ICPC; in Brazil, W3C; in Costa Rica, GrupoInco; in Chile, Fundación Ciudadano Inteligente; in Mexico, Fundar, Citivox, and SocialTIC; in Peru, Escuelab; and in Uruguay, Data.
As far as the subject matters or tracks for the designers to have in mind for their applications, they have health, education, citizen security, state spending, poverty and environment amongst others. The technology blog Fayerwayer indicates:
Cada país trabajará en base a temas de relevancia que podrán elegir, para crear aplicaciones que apunten a resolver esos problemas. Los participantes tendrán a su disposición acceso a datos abiertos de gobiernos, instituciones, ONG y más, que pueden usar para su desarrollo.
Each country will be able to choose their own relevant topic, in order to create applications that aim to resolve these problems. The participants will have, at their disposal, access to open information from governments, institutions, NGO's and more, that they can use for their development.
Aurora Moreno in the website Applicantes [a website about mobile apps] highlights the motives for making this event:
Por un lado, su objetivo es llamar la atención de la ciudadanía para que sean conscientes de la utilidad de los datos que sus gobiernos ofrecen de forma digital; por  otro, esperan que sea un impulso para emprendedores de distintos países y áreas, que puedan conocerse, interactuar entre ellos y generar nuevas ideas en conjunto.
On the one hand, the objective is to draw attention to citizens so that they become more conscious of the usefulness of government information available in digital format; on the other hand, it is hoped to create an impulse for entrepreneurs in different countries and areas to meet one another, and interact with one another in order to generate new ideas together.
“Registration is now open. #DAL 2012 is arriving in full force!”
Registration for teams is already open, it's a question of what the web developers, graphic designers, web masters, project managers, journalists, experts in social topics and people from other disciplines are motivated by and join together in teams within their countries in order to participate. For further information, visit these sections of the website #DAL2012: What is DAL?, But, what is a hackathon?, And, what is open data?, What is an un-conference?, FAQs, Rules.
And if this hasn't been enough to encourage your participation, don't forget that there will be local and regional prizes for the best developed applications, up to the value of $2,000USD. Furthermore the DAL organisation will be looking for the winning apps to continue their development in order to be applied and replicated in the region. As a regional prize, there will also be a mentorship with RandomHacksofKindness [en] through its programme SustainabilityProject.  [en]
We will bring you more updates soon, as well as ideas and inspiration for your projects!