My first Hackcon, as an Anthropology Student!

I was definitely in competition for newest newbie to hacking at Hackcon EU 3, and this is my experience…

For those that don’t know what Hackcon is, it’s a three-day conference that brings together a brilliant and passionate community of hackathon enablers to listen, discuss and share. Before we begin, a little about what brought me to Hackcon, for I am most definitely not a computer science student. My name is Beth and my tech skills are currently limited to impressive GIF finding abilities, challenge me, I dare you. I study anthropology and media at Goldsmiths, I’m president of Goldsmiths Anthropology Society and I’m a committee member of Hacksmiths. Attending Hackcon was a chance to learn more about the drive behind creating such awesome events, how to do it and how to do it better.

This year Hackcon was held at Impact Hub in Birmingham and, in between taking tons of notes with exclamation marks, we fit in lots of networking, drinks, laser tag (which I suck at it turns out) and making new friends aplenty. Never have I ever met such a friendly and awesome group of people keen to share their success and failure for the good of everyone else. Through key notes, discussions and lightning talks almost every aspect of hackathon organising was covered and ways to improve the experience suggested. Making the events fun, accessible and attractive to both attendees and sponsors were just some of the topics covered.

I learnt a lot about a lot in the short space of time, here are some of the key points I took away from this weekend:

• Attracting new hackers is high on the agenda. There were a lot of great ideas suggested about how to include and attract ‘newbies’ to events.
• Themed workshops and hacks are great for providing a space for common passions and bringing the tech to attendee’s interests.
• By continually questioning the actions of our society, we become stronger and clearer in our delivery. For example, what is the motivation behind attending our event? What do our attendees need from us? How can we do more to encourage inclusivity and diversity?
• Transferring knowledge between each other is the best way to learn and grow. The benefits of having a strong and collaborative community to support and encourage each other is worth working for.

Walking away from this event, my backpack is heavier from much great swag and my mind is happily thinking of ways I can help turn the discussions had into better hackathons and events in general.

The points raised at the conference are transferable beyond Hacksmiths and will be brought with me to the planning of the Anthropology Society running and events. If every type of society had such a strong and enthusiastic community supporting them, universities would be a much more productive space! Building a welcoming environment is important in any place and with Major League Hacking and the Hackathon organisers this weekend, they have led by example and embodied their own ideologies while acknowledging that more can always be done and that room for improvement will invariably be there.