Education Hack Day brought together technologists, educators, teachers and others to hack solutions to the problems facing our education system.

Hack4Reno allowed developers and designers to learn new technology, showcase their talent and ultimately build new apps that helped make Reno a smarter, more engaged place to live. Hack4Reno not only focused on open data but the event was planned in open source fashion on Github and even took place out in the open as developers braved the elements outside for 24 hours.

A weekend long hacking event focused on building transit applications with open data and APIs from the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority.

The City of New York held its first-ever hackathon this past summer. Reinvent NYC.Gov was a collaborative event in which over 100 developers, designers, technology partners and city officials participated in the event to collaboratively build the future of NYC.gov. The goal was prototypes and mockups of a revamped NYC.gov. Participants devoted over 2,000 man hours to Reinvent NYC.Gov and created proposals that demonstrated elegant, innovative approaches to civic engagement and communication.

The global hackathon is run a little bit differently in Philadelphia, where it's been held twice: ask the organizers and they'll say it's more locally focused than any other. NASA and the World Back are there, sure, and apps are built with that data, but in both and in the future, there is a focus on impacting the local community.