Based on the same hypothesis, I've been brainstorming on first how to gather people around meaningful discussions & ideas, and then on how to motivate them to implement them.
What I came up with is that people need to commit. And to make them commit, they need to be feel motivated, engaged and confident about their goal and their team. And to achieve that, we need recurring events in a trusted place whith trusted people where a strong culture reigns.
One way to implement this is to use existing structures, such as coworking spaces, and provide to their members the possibility to gather in the same place, after work.
Rather than expediting the event like a "startup weekend", I'd rather define a longer-term strategy separated in phases. That kind of program could start with one or two months of weekly discussions, inviting speakers, in order to set minds on the right track.
Then the second phase could be focused on the definition of teams and projects.
Afterwards, the third phase consists of the implementation of the ideas. People could work on them whenever they want, but a weekly event will still be held to keep track of progress and, more importantly, to exchange feedback.
Finally, the last phase would consist on some sort of demo day.
I completely agree, I think there are many ways you could do things on a longer term basis. I think the idea of the "startup weekend" style event has a couple of benefits in this context.
1. It's a good way to try it and see what happens and learn so you can learn what to improve in the format.
2. It helps gain momentum because you're only requesting a small amount of initial time investment from people.
3. One of the key points I wanted to stress was the ability to have organisations on hand to help fill in knowledge gaps about the realties of the situation data etc, and also be able be actively involved in the process. I think it's easier to get them involved in that capacity for one weekend. Then build on there involvement after they see the value etc.
I've want to create a nontechnical hackathon at my university around the idea of making the university better for a few months now and the biggest issue I've got is fighting the connotations of the word hackathon.
Startup Weekend is great because they've established this brand around what is essentially a hackathon and doesn't necessarily scare away nontechy people.
I'd be interested to see what the hackathon to change the world ends up attracting in terms of talent type and background and what the final name for the event is.
The naming is certainly something I have issues with. I haven't really spent any time thinking about how else to express it but I don't think I will be short of ideas when I do.
In terms of what kind of talent it will attract I have no idea. For me personally I think with the type of issues we want to deal with, diversity is key. You need talent as much as you just need a different point of view.
It's great that you have been thinking about doing something at your university. What other things have you experienced so far ?
Based on the same hypothesis, I've been brainstorming on first how to gather people around meaningful discussions & ideas, and then on how to motivate them to implement them. What I came up with is that people need to commit. And to make them commit, they need to be feel motivated, engaged and confident about their goal and their team. And to achieve that, we need recurring events in a trusted place whith trusted people where a strong culture reigns.
One way to implement this is to use existing structures, such as coworking spaces, and provide to their members the possibility to gather in the same place, after work.
Rather than expediting the event like a "startup weekend", I'd rather define a longer-term strategy separated in phases. That kind of program could start with one or two months of weekly discussions, inviting speakers, in order to set minds on the right track. Then the second phase could be focused on the definition of teams and projects. Afterwards, the third phase consists of the implementation of the ideas. People could work on them whenever they want, but a weekly event will still be held to keep track of progress and, more importantly, to exchange feedback. Finally, the last phase would consist on some sort of demo day.
What do you guys think about that?