In an ongoing effort to help the poorest country in the Americas survive and recover from a devastating earthquake, hackers around the world are participating in CrisisCamp Hackathons this Saturday, January 16.

The unconference-style events are free for attendees, who are asked to volunteer their time and expertise to create technology projects that provide data, information, maps and technical assistance to non-governmental organizations, relief agencies and the public. The CrisisCamps being held this weekend will all directly benefit Haitian relief efforts.

Volunteers of all kinds - the technically talented and others, too - are requested to sign up.

Hackathons are being organized in Silicon Valley, London, Washington DC and Boulder/Denver. Some of these events still need organization and leadership help; volunteers are asked to take charge and donate whatever time or resources they have available.

Proposed projects so far include a base layer map for Port Au Prince for NGOs and relief agencies, a family locator system, a volunteer skill matrix, a news aggregator to coordinate data feeds and ongoing definitions to support ongoing CrisisCamp efforts. For an idea of how these kinds of tech can help in times of national and natural disasters, check out Chad Catacchio's post on crisis mapping.

CrisisCamp's goal is to gather topic experts, app developers and emergency first responders to create better technology and practices for crisis management and disaster relief.

For updates and more information, follow CrisisCamp on Twitter.

For more on what technologists are doing to help relief efforts in Haiti, check out these other RWW posts:

Internet Rallies to Help Haiti: Here's What You Can Do Right Now

Google Offers Satellite Images of Haiti, Post-Earthquake

CloudCamp for Haiti: How the Cloud Can Help Aid Efforts

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