On the same day as the first snow of the season, the city of Seattle announced its “Let It Snow!” hackathon. The city is hoping to tap technology users, designers, and developers for a community design workshop on how city officials communicate with the public during snow-related emergencies.

Though some areas of the country have become famous for high-tech innovation–such as Silicon Valley, Austin, Texas, and Seattle–all congressional districts in the U.S. have both investments and contributions in the high-tech space and should be treated as such, according to a recent report by the Information Technology Innovation Foundation.

Alex Alben, Washington state’s chief privacy officer, is helping private citizens, government agencies, and small businesses in the state better understand privacy laws and how to protect privacy when using and sharing sensitive information.

U.S. states are some of the largest employers in the country, so it only stands to reason that they are and can be some of the most influential advocates of preventive medicine and wellness programs for Americans.

Jon Froehlich at the University of Maryland is working with a team of graduate students on Project Sidewalk, an online tool through which users can view their Washington, D.C., neighborhoods with Google Street View and label areas that may be inaccessible to those with impaired mobility.

The government and private industry should be doing more to prepare the American workforce for a technology-based future, according to panelists at an Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) event on Wednesday in Philadelphia during the Democratic National Convention. “[Politicians] are going to have to be developing policies in their local areas to permit a […]