Over the next two days, hackers from across the globe will team up on nearly every continent for the second Random Hacks of Kindness (RHoK) event aimed at finding solutions to real-world problems caused by natural disasters. It’s a 48-hour marathon of competitive computer coding with the best and brightest developers in Washington, D.C.; Sydney, Australia; Nairobi, Kenya; London; Jakarta, Indonesia; and Sao Paolo, Brazil.

Fueled by the success of the first “Hackathon” held in November 2009 in Mountain View, California (SIGNAL coverage), coordinators determined it was time to tap into the global community of tech experts. The progressive initiative is backed by an unlikely group of partners: Google, Microsoft, NASA, Yahoo! and the World Bank.

Hackers will focus on finding creative solutions to real emergency response issues submitted by organizations and companies in the field. Teams will be formed “ad hoc depending on what people are passionate about,” said Patrick Svenburg, senior manager, developer and platform evangelism, Microsoft Federal. “All the solutions are on an open source license, which is the only way to have developers work together” while keeping the information public for anyone to work with, he said.

With 200 registered attendees, Svenburg called the response to this year’s event tremendous and said it shows a desire from developers to use their skills and time for a noble cause, especially following the earthquakes in Haiti and Santiago and the oil spill threatening the Gulf Coast. The project allows developers to make a positive impact, and “if nothing else, we can reclaim the term hacker,” said Svenburg, which can apply to someone finding innovative software solutions but commonly refers to someone breaking into a computer system.

Solutions prepared over the next two days will serve as a starting point for developers who will continue to tweak and perfect the programs even after the event ends. The work never stops, said Svenburg, but the impact of RHoK can be felt immediately. After last year’s event, a solution created to help connect friends and family members with people stranded by disasters was adopted by the World Bank and implemented just a few months later in Haiti. “We’re trying to be proactive—not just reacting to the next crisis but getting out in front of it,” Svenburg explained.

The event kicks off tonight with a keynote reception at the U.S. State Department and ends with an awards ceremony and demonstration of the winning hacks on Sunday.

The Joint Warfighting Conference in Virginia Beach wrapped up Thursday. Executive Editor Maryann Lawlor blogged extensively from the event.

You can read her coverage here.

Editor in Chief Robert K. Ackerman, Executive Editor Maryann Lawlor, and Associate Editor Katie Packard are on site at WEST 2010. Click here to see their blog entries on speakers, technology, and goings-on at the conference.

Wondering how you can get your business’ news published in one of SIGNAL’s publications? Executive Editor Maryann Lawlor will be hosting an event at West 2010 for PAOs, business development managers and PR folks to help you learn how. “The Secrets Behind Getting News Published” in SIGNAL’s media will be held Wednesday, February 3, at 9 a.m. PST.

Interested in learning more? Want to attend? Contact Maryann for details.

AFCEA’s Small Business Committee is hosting “Federal Legislative Overview” as part of its Small Business Toolkit Series. The guest speaker for the event is Gregory Willis, counsel for the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. He’ll share his first-hand insight on the current legislative climate for small businesses.

The event will be held at AFCEA International headquarters on Tuesday, January 12, at 10 a.m. EST. For more information, visit the Web site or contact Dawn Falsinotti, (703) 631-6190.

SIGNAL Magazine Executive Editor Maryann Lawlor is covering MILCOM ’09 live from Boston. Read her MILCOM coverage here.

Featured speakers during the event include:

• Admiral Thad W. Allen, Commandant of the United States Coast Guard
• Lt. Gen. Ted F. Bowlds, Commander, Electronic Systems Center, Hanscom Air Force Base, Massachusetts
• Honorable Michael Chertoff, Former United States Secretary of Homeland Security
• David Gergen, Editor-at-large, U.S. News & World Report
• Mr. Tony Montemarano, Component Acquisition Executive, Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA)
• Lt. Gen. Dennis Via, Director for Command, Control, Communications and Computer (C4) Systems, J-6, Joint Staff

The German military has way too many legacy communication and information systems to replace them all at once, so it is looking to commercial technology to improve capabilities. EDir. IT-AmtBw Hans-Ulrich Schade, chief of Division C, Bundeswehr IT Office, described this challenge at the AFCEA Bonn Chapter’s Koblenz Symposium on September 3, 2009.

Schade related that the Bundeswehr has more than 120,000 radios. These include about 200 different types of radios, and the military cannot afford to replace them all. So, any solution must incorporate these legacy systems.

For example, some forces currently can transmit either voice or data. The need to choose between one or the other will be eliminated in the near future, he maintained. He also declared that the use of commercial technology is the basis on which all improvements to Germany military IT are based.

German military forces in Afghanistan have improved their command and control (C2) capabilities significantly, but they need more advanced technologies to move those advances down to the lower tactical levels. This assessment was stated by Lt. Gen. Carl-Hubertus von Butler, GEA, commander, German Army Forces Command, at the AFCEA Bonn Chapter’s Koblenz Symposium on September 3, 2009.

Gen. Butler cited broadband solutions as a vital need for moving vital reconnaissance data down to warfighters. “What good will sensors do if they can’t get [their information] down to lower levels?” he stated.

He called for better ability to transmit both voice and data at the tactical level. Many C2 advances in Afghanistan are bearing fruit, but the German army often finds it necessary to train its troops abroad on some new systems.

However, the general warned against information overload. Soldiers must be trained to recognize what information is relevant amid the flood of data that new sensors and networks are delivering. He expressed doubt that this goal is reachable.

And, interoperability remains a major challenge. Despite creating a joint French-German combat force, Germany found its forces were more interoperable with those of Norway and Sweden than with its French counterparts.

Maintaining technological superiority is the only way a modern military such as Germany’s can defeat asymmetric threats, Gen. Butler declared.