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seism

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mostly harmless. coder / demoscener / algorist. currently: T.C.M. of the Apertus team at SNAI.

[ my public key: https://keybase.io/loleg; my proof: https://keybase.io/loleg/sigs/qYNSouuWuOTqSCA5YMlk48KDIPaJV1TByOA-EkL_oSw ]

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Swiss {AI} Weeks 1 year ago

Switzerland just kicked off its largest AI movement to date — all about turning world-class research into real-world impact. Over 55 organizations – including the Federal Government, EPFL AI Center, ETH AI Center, Gebert Rüf Stiftung, Swiss Re, Swisscom, and UBS – are joining forces to shape the future of trustworthy AI made in Switzerland.

From 1 Sept to 5 Oct, the latest Swiss AI developments will come to life in events and hackathons across the country:

AI Talks, Conferences, Workshops & Online Courses in 10+ cities from Basel, Bern, Geneva, Lausanne, and Lucerne to Lugano, Lenzburg, St. Gallen, Winterthur, and Zurich Hackathons in 7 cities AI Challenges from leading organisations in healthcare, government, finance, industry & more Incubation programs for Hackathon winners

Join us and help to #makeAIright https://swiss-ai-weeks.ch

Kudos on the idea, and for reaching out here! I build open source tools for hackathons, something I posted about here a few days ago. Your question is a great one, because small private events are not really addressed well by the typical guidance for large (100+) event organizers. Let me (with a little help from my fine-tuned assistant) give it a try:

Do: communicate the objectives and rules clearly (e.g. Gantt chart the timeline), encourage a diverse mix (friends and family, also to boost the audience), provide necessary resources for ideation (from high quality moderation kits to healthy snacks and water), allocate time for brainstorming, pitching, voting, and development stages, and ensure there are mentors available (at least people with some prior hackathon experience) to guide the teams. Think about some creative team-building activities.

Don't: overload participants with too many rules, micromanage the teams, celebrate individual achievements over ensuring all participants get something out of it, or make the hackathon too competitive.

In summary: focus on learning, collaboration, and having fun while documenting the process and outcomes for future reference. Especially for that last point, feel free to test Dribdat in our sandbox, or ping me if you want something more robust & private.

Good luck with your event!

A language that changed the lives of millions of people - myself included - who couldn't go to learn C or Pascal in grad school just to get started with coding. I imagine that modern alt-tech culture from hackspaces to hackathons - owes much to you as well. Also, I am heartened to learn that one of the first precursors of BASIC was DOPE.

Lighting the candle in a way Mr. Kurtz would have appreciated: https://graphics.social/@seism/113516128540983344

When I am forced to use a phone or tablet of a brand and size I'm not used to, everything seems wonky and out of place. Yet I can adapt to a different brand and size of car in a few minutes. Replacing tactile memory with skeuomorphism, is like a prosthetic arm that can extend 10m to replace your sickly feely biological one. I'm always up for advocating for more arts & crafts as part of interaction design.

It's very nice and clean and functional. Budgets are some of the most boring and universal tech ever, and I think your project is very worth continuing. Kudos for having a collaborative (if not fancy and needlessly realtime) feature from the start!

Props for doing a self organised retro hardware hack and writing up in so much glorious and gory detail! You might mention some of the PSX game jams on itch.io and GGJ for those preferring a more social setting.