Lawyers, IT and other professionals engaged in 'Random Hacks of Kindness'
- By Eugene Clark & Jun Young Yang
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E-mail China.org.cn, June 20, 2016
Law schools, like people, are shaped and influenced by their surroundings. For TOP Education Institute's Sydney City School of Law, for example, that means the unique surroundings of the Australian Technology Park. Law School students and staff have been increasingly active and supportive in the activities of the ATP as indicated by the School's adoption of the ATP's themes of innovation, sustainability and community.
Recently, the authors participated in the CSIROData61 Winter Hackathon. In addition to being a law student, Jun is the "Technology Officer" of the recently established Sydney City School of Law Student Association.
While the word "hack" has negative connotations, people from the world of technology know it as a more neutral term involving the use of technology, especially codes, to achieve a particular result. In the case of a "white-hat" or a "white-hack," that enables an organization to better achieve its mission, for example, delivering better services more effectively and efficiently or to new groups of people.
As one of the organizers observed, this event was about getting organizations to "rock'n roll." Assisted by "Random Hacks of Human Kindness" (RHoK) (pronounced "rock"), firms would hopefully be empowered to reach the next developmental stage and go on to rock'n roll and keep rolling to make their vision a reality.
The Sydney event was part of similar events occurring around Australia and internationally. Random Hacks of Kindness (RHoK) is a joint initiative between Microsoft, Google, Yahoo!, NASA, and the World Bank plus local sponsors for each event. A major objective is to bring together experts in various areas to focus on challenges such as disaster management and crisis response. Those involved have diverse talents, including software developers, graphic designers, web designers, business analysts, marketers, content creators, managers, social media experts and, now, even lawyers. These groups work with "change makers" who are committed to social entrepreneurship -- helping organizations seek to use innovation to make a change in the world and achieve positive social impact.
Traditionally, lawyers have focused on the past. This is especially so in the Common Law tradition that uses past precedents to guide the present and the future. A "hack," in contrast, focuses on improving the future. This is significant because future lawyers will focus on design -- designing solutions, engineering processes and creating ways of not only solving problems but preventing them from happening in the first place. The future will require lawyers who team up with other professionals and community members to tackle society's most challenging problems. These lawyers will be characterized by an attitude of "why not?!" rather than "Yes, but..."
Each RHoK event and location chooses specific "winning" hacks emerging from the event. These may be new projects with codes developed, or they may build on existing projects and codes. The projects are judged according to the following criteria:
1. creativity / innovative / uniqueness
2. utility -- is it usable?
3. Applicability -- does it solve a problem?
4. impact, local or global
5. progress (on existing work, or starting from nothing)
Three of the projects involved in the CSIROData61 were:
1. Accessible Australia
Tourism is one of Australia's fastest growing and most important industries. Approximately a fifth of all Australians suffer from some type of disability. An increasing number of Australian people want to travel, but face the challenge of finding destinations that adequately cater for their disability. This project involves a web-based resource for mobility, hearing and vision impaired people to travel known as Australia - Tripadvisor for travellers with disabilities.
2. Ready Set Go
The educational evidence is strong that early childhood education should be a top priority. This project involves the creation of resource for administrators, families and supporters to address success and school readiness for Aboriginal children.
3. Watch Me Grow
The extent of autism is greater than most people realize. Early intervention is vital if children are to benefit from treatments that help foster neural networks that make all the difference. This involves a web app to detect autism in children and increase early intervention.
Conclusion
Our hope is that white-hackers all around the world will increasingly unite with professionals from all disciplines -- law, economics, business, sociology, education, etc. -- to work with public and private sector organizations and thereby make a positive difference in the world -- one random hack of kindness at a time.
Eugene Clark is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:
http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/eugeneclark.htm
Jun Young Yang is a computer specialist and student, Sydney City School of Law.
Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors only, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
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