US hackathons rapidly expand, as nerds, geeks and other computer whizzes brainstorm for cash. Salvi Pascual (L) and Daniel Arzuaga (2nd L) write code duirng a hackathon to devise innovative technology solutions aimed at strengthening communications and information access in Cuba.
Photograph by: Joe Raedle , Getty Images SAN JOSE, Calif. - It used to be that "hacking" was just a type of crime, a computer break-in. But today, the term is also part of a growing — and perfectly legal — mainstay of the tech sector. Computer programming competitions known as "hackathons" have spread like viruses in recent years as ways for geeks, nerds and designers to get together to eat pizza, lose sleep and create something new. The formal, marathon group brainstorming sessions are focused on everything from developing lucrative apps to using computer code to solve the world's problems. "A hackathon is the fastest way to actually do something about an idea," said Nima Adelkhani, organizer of the weekend-long Hack for Peace in the Middle East competition in San Francisco this month.
Britain's biggest digital talent step up to the plate at Flood Hackathon. 200 sign up to Government-supported Flood Hackathon to help national crisis Developers from across the country came together this weekend to put technology at the heart of the national flood rescue operation at an emergency Hackathon.
Conceived in a meeting at Number 10 Downing Street as late as Friday night, the event had over 200 attendees signed up by 9am the following morning. Armed with live data released specially from the Environment Agency, over twenty teams descended on Google Campus on Sunday to propose their ideas. Winning projects to help Britain tackle the worst floods for a generation ranged from automated SMS help services to maps predicting tomorrow’s water levels. ‘Working non-stop’ The meeting was attended by Tech City UK, the Environment Agency, the Government Digital Service, the Open Data Institute, the Cabinet Office and leading technology firms. It was chaired by Joanna Shields, chair of Tech City UK, and also attended by her successor as CEO Gerard Grech. Moving forward. 2014 ideas for hackathons. The How To Guide For Organizing a Successful Hackathon For Social Good. Hackathons are a great way to get developers and other creative people together and working on building ideas into web and mobile applications.
Imagine if this creative energy could be channeled to further your social mission. Many big companies like Google, Facebook and LinkedIn organize regular hackdays within their companies to give people an opportunity to come up with new ideas that help their users. A great example of this was the veterans hackday organized by LinkedIn which got developers involved in using technology to solve problems faced by veterans today such as staying in touch with other veterans or finding jobs. Last year we saw a number of Hackathons being organized in the social good space – Hack for Change by Change.org, Hacking Education by DonorsChoose.org, Random Hacks of Kindness, Summer of Smart Hackathons by Gray Area Foundation to name a few. Each of these hackathons were a fabulous success and resulted in a number of useful applications around social good.
Business Culture Hackers. Organizational hacking. My friend Jim is a hacker.
Not the kind of hacker who sits at a computer trying to break into highly classified computer systems – that’s a highly simplistic portrayal. No, he’s the kind of hacker who approaches many of the aspects in his life with a mindset that is critical, analytical and creative. And while the hacker manifesto will serve you well if you’ve got a bent for exploring off-limit networks on the internet, it’s an approach you can bring into all sorts of other areas of the world – whether it be technology, your home life or presumably organizational culture.
Recently, I’ve started hanging out at Foulab, the Montreal hacker space, where different Montreal hackers get together to learn from each other and collaborate on all sorts of technological projects – recently, folks were learning to use a 3-D etcher. A combination stereo-system-bicycle was being built. Repurposing is about challenging the need for new stuff. What would organizational repurposing look like? Business Culture Hackers.