The Faces of CrisisCamp Haiti at Sunlight Labs in Washington, D.C.

The Sunlight Foundation hosted a gathering of technologists yesterday in DC as part of CrisisCamp Haiti, a global effort to build and modify technologies to support the ongoing relief efforts in Haiti.

I was happy to attend and felt genuinely energized by the enthusiastic crowd of 135+ volunteers. Projects, contacts, and results are listed on the Crisis Commons Haiti page.

From the event:

Click here for my full set of images on Flickr.

From the LA Times:

For four days Gordon Thomas watched the horror of Haiti’s earthquake unfold and wished that there was a way for him to help.

But the 30-year-old San Diego man is a software engineer, not a medical doctor or a search-and-rescue expert who can drop everything and rush off to deliver emergency aid to the Caribbean island nation.

So on Saturday he decided to use the equivalent of a digital pick and shovel to help Haitians with the long-term job of digging out their quake-crushed country.

Thomas and about 45 other self-described “techies and geo-geeks” and other volunteers met at USC to collaborate on ways to use computers to design improved maps of battered Port-au-Prince neighborhoods, concoct better family-locater services for quake victims and speed more accurate and timely relief information from more closely coordinated data feeds.

Computer programmers organized companion “Crisis Camp Haiti” workshops Saturday in Northern California’s Silicon Valley; Boulder, Colo.; Washington; and London.

It Doesn’t Get Better: City and Colour at the 9:30 Club

A few months back, a good friend in DC turned me on to City and Colour from Canadian singer Dallas Green. I’ve been shooting a lot of shows lately and thought maybe I was losing interest. A few words into Green’s first song at the 9:30 Club and I realized that the other shows just haven’t been that good.

Green stands out as an incredible talent (though his CDs don’t do his voice justice) and has a calm, funny stage presence that I appreciated after seeing plenty of fidgety hipsters awkwardly chitchat their way through the rare moments between songs.

.

If you want to get acquainted, click the link above, have a listen to Bring Me Your Love, and see if he’s playing near you soon.

Review and all pics over at BYT (click it).

SnOMG in DC [phonetography]

For the first time in years, the forecast was dead on and we got more than 20″ outside my front door. DC is down for the count and I’m enjoying a snow day today.