Preamble
The late 2030's were bad. What followed was worse.
The earth warmed more than anyone could predict. The seas rose. And rose. Unrelenting storms ravaged entire continents. Floods swept away cities at a time.
Food was scarce. More and more began to migrate, but with nowhere to go. Infrastructures collapsed around the world.
One thing remained. The internet. It was more robust than we thought.
When all looked bleak, there was a glimmer of hope in Northern Europe. Some had recently unearthed a number of data centers, buried for decades, filled with functioning hardware. Beside them were power generators, the fuel gauge pointed at a line marked “4 days worth”.
A search began for those who could use such archaic technologies. The mystic "NeIC" collaboration kept sifting up in the archives. Their deeds had been sung for decades, but in the end, even the NeIC itself had been lost and mostly forgotten. To learn more of these data centers, and this "NeIC", an old, weary, wise man was called to help. Gudmund was his name. With his cryptic digitations, old Gudmund was able to retrieve a register of names from one of the ancient machines. It bore the title “2019 NeIC all hands meeting attendee list”.
Dispatches were sent far and wide in search of these sages of old. In time, they were found, at a great expense, and ported to a sanctuary in the Norwegian mountains. They tasked themselves with re-tooling the old technologies to seed a new civilization. To rebuild.
The grey and bewizened council sat in concert and laid their plans. Beginning, then, with the question: What were the most imminent tasks begging solution?
Task ideas
- Communication, including language
- Data gathering / analysis
- Assisted/Informed decision making (AI)
- Transport
- Food production
- Finding/making habitable locations
- Community building
- Digital identity and decentralised trust
- Something completely different, but even more crucial
How will it look like?
During the NeIC Hackathon we shall first listen to the visionaires (you!) presenting their ideas on how to restore civilization to its glory. After that, we are going to split into teams and make (or fake) a solution for these tasks! That’s it!
What do you need to bring with you? Positive attitude, open mind and lots of energy! And of course, your laptop. If you feel that you will need something more, please contact the organizing team.
To make sure that solutions are actually found, we will have a support team of mentors that will help out and eliminate any blockers on the way.
Finally, just to give you a feeling as to what kind of project we anticipate, here are some one-liners:
- A peer-to-peer platform for connecting people in need with caretakers.
- Creating an API and map overlay exposing the most scientifically interesting geographical areas.
- Create a distributed digital identity that incorporates person’s education, skill and cultural fit.
- Games for children to teach them how to use this old and mysterious technology.
- A virtual interpreter that converts jests of people into human-readable text in the different languages.
- An IoT platform for fridges allowing to predict who is planning to have a food-fest, but forgot to invite neighbours.
The schedule is built around the following key moments:
PITCHING IDEAS
Ideas for solutions are presented based on "elevator-pitch" method within 90 seconds. Audience can ask one to three short questions. You can prepare 1 (one) PDF slide to support your pitch. You should send the slide before the presentation to ilja.livenson@ut.ee .
Consider following key points:
- Briefly, describe your idea background (10 sec)
- What is the name of the idea? (5 sec)
- What's the idea all about? What is the problem your idea solves? Target user count and description (30 sec)
- Technical solution and if there is a revenue model (in case of non-profit idea, how the maintenance and further development costs will be covered) (30 sec)
- Minimum viable product and plan for the next 2 days. Who do you need in your team? (20 sec)
NB! Practice your pitch to your friends or family before you present! 90 seconds goes really fast!
FORMING TEAMS
After pitching is over, we will put all the ideas on the wall. Every participant will choose their favourite idea and this is how teams will be formed. The average team has about 5 to 7 people and the team should be "balanced" - covering all required roles, like the necessary engineers, designers, a project manager (team lead/visionary/field expert) and marketer in order to get the product/service ready in 48 hours! The minimum size for a team is 4 people and max is 8 people. If some ideas get too few people or are not balanced (probably unable to build the service), the idea will be dumped. Those people should choose another idea/team.
WORKING IN TEAMS
After forming the teams, organisers will give a room/space for every team for the week. You should start by dividing roles, setting the product vision, customer journey and start working right away. It is very important that you have a project manager (team lead/field expert) on the team - one of his/ her tasks is to keep the focus of the team, one eye on the clock and the other on the team progress. Time is short!
