… well not exclusively. The problem with hackathons is that they’re extremely intimidating to people who can’t code. That completely contradicts the aim of creating a popular open data movement. We need to be inclusive, not exclusive. We need to make the circle wider and physically force the developer from the centre of it.

So how do we do that?

Speed data(ing)

I know it’s a cheesy name so let me know if you can wordsmith a better one. So this is how it works. There are two roles, the wrangler and the interrogator. When you arrive at the speed data(ing) event you get to sign up as either or both of the roles. Wranglers are randomly paired with interrogators and work together for a 30 minute session. During that time, the wrangler has fingers on the keyboard and the interrogator interviews the data. For those of you from an extreme programming background you’ll recognise this to be similar to paired programming. It’s a great way to work. The wrangler works at the strategic level, i.e. sorting rows, pivot tables, filters or whatever works. The interrogator starts to ask questions that he or she would like answered.

A typical question might be: “How many white South Africans speak fluent Sesotho?” The answer is around 16,000. Do we have any wunderkinds in South Africa (my definition is kids 17 years or younger who have a university degree)? The answer is no. These are interesting questions to ask and the answers are hidden in the census data.

After your 30 minute session, the gong sounds, hands off the keyboard and you get paired with another wrangler or interrogator as the case may be. At the end of the day, questions and answers are presented. You win if you have the coolest questions and the coolest answers. There’s no prize though, we’re doing it for the fun of it right?

Why is this a good thing?

• Non-developers can become first-class participants rather than supporting actors.
• You get to meet tons of people since you have half an hour with each partner.
• You learn new skills - working with someone else can be deeply rewarding.
• It is achievable in 4 hours, that’s not generally true of a standard hackathon.
• We might learn something that we didn’t know before which might be feedstock for a more traditional hackathon or just a cool personal project.

This is completely new to us. Kudos to Jason and Adi for spitballing and trying to buck that tired trend of running straight-up hackathons. We’re hosting our first one on Saturday, 22 February at Codebridge at 09:30 for International Open Data Day. Come through if you’re in Cape Town. We’re doing a quick intro into the datasets so feel free to arrive earlier so that you don’t miss it.

Details

Location:

Codebridge

Date:

Saturday, 22 February 2014

Time:

09:30 - 13:30 - try to be on time

Snacks:

We'll be catering something vaguely healthy

RSVP:

Please sign-up here - otherwise there won't be any food for you.