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In the aftermath of the attacks on Paris that took place earlier this month, the City of Paris has been quick to respond, much like the rest of the public servants.\u00a0Just as\u00a0Parisians were checking in on Facebook, following news ( & lies) on Twitter, and realizing that some of the most basic needs in the case of an emergency were unable to be fulfilled – contacting the\u00a0Police if you see something, figuring out if loved ones are safe, for example – \u00a0one Paris entrepreneur took to Facebook and asked the question “What can\u00a0hackers\u00a0do to keep us safe?”<\/p>\n
Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Pillou only just sold his company, CCM-Benchmark, one of the leading digital media in France in terms of audience, to LeFigaro Group last month, and a new-found fire has been lit when he called for the “Uberization” of counter-terrorism efforts. In France, Uberization has become synonymous not just with the on-demand economy, as in the US, but with the disruption of the status quo, such as taxis (Uber), hotels (Airbnb) & merchants (Amazon) have experienced.<\/p>\n
The City of Paris quickly picked up on the chatter, which gained momentum on Facebook in the days following the attacks, and put together Hackathon Nec Mergitur<\/a>,\u00a0a hackathon whose goal is to bring people together\u00a0for a weekend to solve civil problems focused around emergency situations. France was rattled on November 13th, with thousands calling 17 (“911”, France’s emergency number), and many criticized the inability of the standard hotline to respond to the influx. Pillou himself asked the question of why it was left to Facebook to\u00a0create\u00a0its now infamous Safety Status feature, and others quickly looked at\u00a0ways to signal people in an affected zone that they were in danger.<\/p>\n The initiative, like many hackathons, is well-meaning, and Pillou has ostensibly thrown himself into the movement just as Jean-David Chamboredon threw\u00a0himself behind the Pigeon movement in 2012<\/a>; however,\u00a0the Pigeon movement notably\u00a0lost its impact<\/a> and voice just as quickly as it gained it<\/a>.\u00a0If Pillou & the city of Paris hope to see technology have a real impact on\u00a0the security of citizens in France (& abroad), they will need to look quickly at the impact the hackathon hopes to have.<\/p>\n I, for one, am thoroughly behind the idea of taking some of the brightest minds in technology and aiming a part of their attention span at solving problems that don’t have an economic model, but a social one; however, there’s a reason entrepreneurs\u00a0make the biggest impact in the private sector, and tend to flutter out in the public sector – the rules are different, as are the goals of each of the players.<\/p>\n