As part of my internship at the Siebel Center for Design, I was put on a team tasked with collaborating with the Pygmalion Festival for their hackathon event, PygHack.
Pygmalion background
Pygmalion began in 2005 as a music festival. In 2013, they began expanding their lineup to include authors, crafts, presenters, technology, comedy, and the hackathon. Centered around the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts in Urbana, part of the UIUC campus. With some events taking place at various venues in the area. The first two Pyhacks took place at Research Park.
Introduction of Hackathon
SCD involvement
for the 3rd iteration of this event...
Changes to hackathon
Already determined it would be relocated from Research Park to the Krannert Lobby, as to put it at the center of the festival and create a spectator event.
The Team?
Research
use makeathon- a step toward what we were wanting, as the end deliverables were expanded from software based solutions to include physical products and business models as well. gave ideas on what materials to provide and how to create a 'topic' open enough to allow for a diverse field of solutions.
ghetto genius (street college)
Ideation
Theme of event
Home- Geoff (small summary)
Multidisciplinnary- fits with theme of SCD
Being hosted in krannert gave the hackathon a physical tie to the arts due to proximity. The theme gave art as inspiration. It would be wrong to ignore art as a final product of the hackathon.
Community involvement- tie the open theme of Home with certain community involvement opportunities. Art Theatre, Bring in local activists and leaders (aaron ammons, danielle chynoweth,
Sponsors, sponsor spaces, prizes, presentations, services.
Set up of space
Day of
compwtition with other hackathon on campus
Teams- formed there or pre assembled
End results
Looking back
Too broad of a topic lead to lack of inspiration
Founding partners of PYGHACK are the Research Park at the University of Illinois, as well as the City of Champaign, Pixo, Wolfram Research, and Volition. Partners to this year's hackathon include Research Park, Krannert Center, Parkland College, Siebel Center for Design, National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), Pixo, Champaign County Economic Development Corporation, Lodgic Everyday Community, II-VI Epiworks, Pavlov Media, Futurewei Technologies, Inc., and Illinois School of Social Work
‘Humanities and Tech are disparate rn’