This time next month (August 10th) we’re holding a hack day. It’s not the kind of thing we usually get up to in our day to day. It’s more of an idea that’s snowballed. The more we spoke about it, the more we got excited about the idea, and now it’s happening.
What is a Charity Hack Day?
For anyone reading along not know what we’re talking about; a hack day brings together creative people, developers, designers, any kind of makers, to block out a day of time and make something from scratch, just for fun, no strings attached.
How did it come about Dan?
“A couple of months ago Dee came into the studio and told us about an article she’d read about some big charities that had run hack days within their organisations. Charities like Macmillan, Comic Relief, RNLI, and Cancer Research have all been doing them for years, either with their own in house creatives, or inviting other agencies to take part with them.
We quickly got to thinking that, given our focus of working with charities, not for profits, and other ethical businesses, we should get on board with this. Why don’t we try giving it a focus of making something for the greater good? Why don’t we invite some of our friends along for the ride?”
Dee:
“I remember this completely differently, though I’m flattered to be credited. In my recollections, Dan asked about whether charities ever accessed hack days and I shared an article I’d read about recent charity Hackathons. I love that he’s taking this forward and brought the seeds of an idea, no matter who sowed them, to fruition. Charities can only grow through innovation, but seldom have the budgets to commit to the time required to be creative. I can’t wait to see what comes out of the day.”
Hack Partners
We got a date in the diary and invited a few local digital agencies to join us. We’ve got people joining us from Rareloop, Hinge and The Bot Platform. We’ve also invited students from the University of Winchester digital and creative courses to put forward a team to take part in Hack for good.
Vote on the Theme
We want our hack day to result in at least one things having been hacked for good. We’re mixing things up a bit by introducing a theme for the day, and letting the general public choose what it is. We hope that the focus will increase the likelihood of developing an innovative solution to a ‘problem’. The four options, based on hacking something for good, are ‘digital accessibility’, ‘global water issues’, ‘homelessness services’, and ‘charity impact demonstration’.
If you’ve made it this far then we’re going to assume that you’re interested in what we’re up to, so why not head over here and vote on the theme yourself? We’ll be closing the poll and announcing the winning theme in a couple of weeks.
Hack for good, Winchester
To make sure we’ve got enough space to hack we’ll be moving out of our office and using some larger space offered by the kind people running the Digital Media and Design course at the University of Winchester. They’ve got a really cool space up there, with all the tech toys and gadgets we’d ever dream of using, eg 3D printers and VR equipment.
Keep an eye on on the poll or vote if you haven’t already, it only takes a second. We’ll be posting updates in the run up and on the day using #Hackforgood on our social feeds so you can see what’s being made. We’ll be sharing more soon!
