​Build open-source tools to unlock federal regulatory comment data with AI, data science, and policy expertise.

​📅 THE DATE IS TBD - Spring 2026
🕙 10:00 AM – 6:30 PM
📍 Metro-accessible venue in DC (TBD)
🥐 Food, drinks, and starter kits provided.

​Please reach out to [email protected] if you are interested in sponsoring!

​More info on our Website

​Join Civic Tech DC and partners for Civic Hack DC 2025:

​A collaborative, hands-on hackathon dedicated to using AI, data science, and data engineering techniques to unlock public-comment data and illuminate how the public influences federal policies.

​🚀 About the Event

​Join us for a hands-on, collaborative hackathon focused on improving public access to regulatory comment data from Regulations.gov. You'll team up with technologists and policy experts to build open-source tools that make this data easier to analyze, explore, and reuse.

​No prior experience with federal data required—just experience working around datasets and a laptop.

​🧠 Why It Matters

​Every year, thousands of public comments are submitted in response to proposed federal rules—but they're locked away in PDFs, spreadsheets, and inconsistent formats. Our goal is to fix that.

​You'll work with a 2.3TB+ dataset made accessible by Professor Ben Coleman’s team at Moravian, updated every 4 hours and hosted on AWS. This is a rare opportunity to apply your skills to a real civic data infrastructure challenge.

​🔍 What We’ll Build Together

​This non-competitive event will focus on building reusable tools and answering key questions like:

• ​Who's commenting? (Individuals, nonprofits, corporations)

• ​What are the major themes or sentiments?

• ​Are there coordinated efforts or mass submissions?

• ​Which comments shaped final policy outcomes?

​🙋‍♀️ Who Should Attend

• ​Technologists: Data engineers, data scientists, AI/ML developers, and coders of moderate skill or experience.

• ​Policy Experts: Government, nonprofit, or academic professionals who understand the rulemaking process

• ​Curious Collaborators: Students, newcomers, and anyone excited to learn

​What we'll build together:

​In this collaborative, non-competitive event, participants will develop open-source tools designed for reuse with any public comment dataset, past or future, exploring questions such as:

• ​Who's commenting? (Individuals, nonprofits, corporations)

• ​What are the major themes, sentiments, and sector-specific concerns?

• ​Can we detect copy-paste campaigns or coordinated submissions?

• ​What are organizations' historical commenting trends and motivations?

• ​Which public comments directly influenced the final regulatory outcomes?

​🧩 Want to Support the Event?

​We’re seeking:

• ​Partnerships: Organizations interested in co-hosting, promoting, and helping us facilitate the event.

• ​Subject Matter Experts: Individuals with expertise willing to serve on our problem review board and provide insights on submitted problem statements.

• ​Sponsorships: Financial support, venue donations, food and beverage provision, or computing infrastructure; including cloud credits, AI resources, and infrastructure support.
  
  Please reach out to [email protected]

​No prior experience is required! just bring your curiosity, ideas, and laptop. We'll provide starter kits, roaming mentors, food, and drinks.

​Event image: "Librarian at Lektriever in Washingtoniana Division", from the DC Public Library Archive