Call for Hacktion!

Imagine a country, we'll call it Institutistan.

Insitutistan has been suffering under the yoke of a vain and despotic ruler, President Mupohtee. The people yearn for reform, but the President, aided by a few large foreign governments, and by selling his people's resources to the infamous Rio Squinto corporation, is able to fund his fearsome army and terrible secret police. The police are constantly inventing new ways to spy on the cowed Institutees.

It is election day, and the regime is a few degrees below boiling. Mupohtee has intimidated the rural populace to such a degree that, barring a miracle, he will be voted into office. And even with a miracle, he probably has contingency plans to steal the election.

Election day, and the foreign press are eager to crack a story. They are constantly hounded by Mupohtee's secret police, threatened by Rio Squinto shills, and looking for ways to get information out of this tightly controlled state.

It is election day. A few NGOs still try to document the election process, hoping at the least to make it clear how the process is being abused. They have been accused of being puppets funded by USESD, an American aid organization based in Silicon Valley that may or may not be helping the CIA to conduct regime change.

It is election day. No one knows what to expect from the People's Resistance, a small group of dissident electrical engineers turned rebels, branded by the regime as terrorists. Their scrappy leader, Barbara Wheatstone, is famous for fighting the secret police with a mixture of gadgets and street theater.

It is election day. The President is driving to cast his vote in the city center. Like many, he attended University in the west, and in a fit of vanity -- and at great expense -- Mupohtee rebuilt the center of the capital to look exactly like the MIT campus.

His retinue will drive up to the Parliament building (a faux Pei), he'll walk into the lobby, where he'll be greeted by executives of Rio Squinto for photographs. They have been putting pressure on Mupohtee to sign over 1/3rd of the country to be turned into the world's first 'total earth removal' mining operation, sure to leave only a smoldering pit. Mupohtee has so far resisted, but no one knows what the corporation has up its sleeve.

Election day. In the struggle for power, money, and justice, which part of society will successfully use technology to turn its vision of the future into reality?

______________________________

Each team can choose to forward the interests of one of the following groups:
The State
The NGOs
The People's Resistance
The Foreign Press
The Corporation

*Great entries will be a mixture of social innovation in concept, technical innovation presented as a functioning demo, and online documentation. No one leg of the tripod is superior to the other, but a good balance is preferred.

*There will be prizes. There will be two expert judges; additionally, the CfA participants will vote on their favorite projects, and their favorite will count as the third judge.

*Final presentations will take place on the President's route through the Parliament building. Timing will be fairly strict, there will be a screen to show presentations.