Hackathons move beyond Silicon Valley After visiting the West African nation two years ago, Jocelyn Wyatt, the executive director for Ideo's nonprofit arm Ideo.org, organized the hackathon to develop software that would let people in the city of Kumasi report public sightings of human waste via text message or Facebook, then create digital maps to identify risky locations. Hackathons are no longer the exclusive province of Silicon Valley companies such as Facebook, which used crash coding sessions to develop its chat feature, a profile design called Timeline, and the iconic "Like" button. [...] lawyers, chefs and animal lovers are adopting the same "move fast and break things" ethos to create projects quickly on a small budget. On Dec. 7, Hack//Meat will ask New York-based software developers and culinary experts to develop ways to improve cattle ranch efficiency. Programmers flock to these software jam sessions to network and enjoy the rush involved with building something quickly, says Brian Kennish, whose startup Disconnect, which makes Web browser plug-ins, recently organized a hackathon for legal professionals to simplify websites' privacy policies.