Hacks and Hackers: Hack Day Manchester (#hhhmcr)
Event Info
Description
What?
Scraperwiki, the award-winning new
screen scraper and data mining tool, funded by 4iP, is putting on a one day
practical hack day* in Manchester at which web developers and designers will
pair up with journalists and bloggers to produce a number of projects and
stories based on public data. We would like to thank our sponsors, Inside the
M60, Guardian Open Platform, the Digital Editors Network /Vision+Media
(supported by the European Regional Development Fund and the Northwest Regional
Development Agency), Journal Local, and MEN Media, for making the event
possible.
Who's it for?
We hope to attract 'hacks' and 'hackers'
from all different types of backgrounds: people from big media organisations,
as well as individual online publishers and freelancers.
What will I get out of it?
The aim is to show journalists how to
use programming and design techniques to create online news stories and
features; and vice versa, to show programmers how to find, develop, and polish
stories and features. To see what happened at our past events in Liverpool and Birmingham visit the
ScraperWiki blog.
How much?
NOTHING! It's free, thanks to our
sponsors and our host, the Manchester Digital Laboratory (MadLab).
What should I bring?
We would encourage people to come along with ideas for local ‘datasets’ that
are of interest. In addition we will create a list of suggested data sets at
the introduction on the morning of the event but flexibility is key for this
event. If you have a laptop, please bring this too.
So what exactly will happen on the day?
Armed with their laptops and WIFI, journalists and developers will be put into
teams of around four to develop their ideas, with the aim of finishing final
projects that can be published and shared publicly. Each team will then present
their project to the whole group. Overall winners will receive a prize at the
end of the day.
NB: We are planning another event in Leeds on Thursday October 28th. Keep an eye on the ScraperWiki blog for more details.
*Not sure what a hack day is? Let's go with the Wikipedia definition: It "an event where developers, designers and people with ideas gather to build 'cool stuff'"...
