We'll be offering a virtual event for people who cannot make it in person due to the weather (watch https://github.com/OpenDataSTL/codeacross2015 for details or you can follow @OpenDataSTL on twitter).



Also, we (i.e. Brett) will do an introduction at both 8 am and 1 pm, for those who decide to wait out the storm before coming out.



Join OpenDataSTL this Saturday for Code Across 2015!



Never been to a meetup? No problem! We've got projects for all experience levels and skillsets - we need writers, public policy enthusiasts, developers, and more! We'll connect you to a project that fits your interests.



Code Across 2015 is centered around the Code for America Principles for 21st Century Government (http://www.codeforamerica.org/governments/principles/) and all our projects will be grounded in one or more of these principles. (If you haven't already seen them, take a look & let's discuss on Saturday! Is anything missing? How can we work to apply these principles in St. Louis?)



We also have some specific projects and challenges to guide our work on Saturday.



1) Update the US City Open Data Census (http://us-city.census.okfn.org/): We spent Code Across 2014 adding info about St. Louis to the Open Data Census - let's see if anything has changed in the past year and think about how we can make data more open! There's also a new Local Digital Services Census (https://service-census.herokuapp.com/)we can contribute to.



2) Liberate local data: We have a new OpenDataSTL portal kindly donated by Socrata, our OpenDataSTL GitHub repo, and other local data hosting options - let's find data in PDFs or other hard-to-use formats and make it more open!



3) Health Hack Weekend Project Work (https://github.com/OpenDataSTL/health-hack-weekend): We've got some great projects in progress from January's Health Hack Weekend that may need some love.



4) Food Stamp Application Process: Somewhat related to Health Hack Weekend, there is also a national Code Across challenge we can contribute to on food stamp eligibility screening (https://github.com/mRelief/mrelief_snap_screeners).



You can also use Code Across to work collaboratively on drafting a model Open Data Policy (https://github.com/schwuw/openDataPolicy_stlco/wiki), planning for apps to help with homelessness and rapid re-housing, or polishing our new OpenDataSTL website (http://opendatastl.github.io/) using Jekyll and GitHub Pages.



Hope to see you Saturday!