Hack the budget

Finland’s Ministry of Finance is co-organising a hack day on the country’s budget plans, hoping to find new ways to make the budget understandable, and get more citizens interested.

“We want to inspire a broad range of experts, including economists, social scientists, behavioural scientists, designers, and of course software developers”, the ministry explains in its introduction. “We believe that the budget needs to be looked at in many different ways, and that combining different kinds of knowledge and experience, produce the best results.”

The three-day hackathon, from 9 to 11 May, is to result in new tools to help citizens understand the economy.