When people come together, great things happen. Last weekend, the Hackaday Community all over the world self organized and came together in 64 cities for World Create Day. It was a coalescence of people who want to make a difference in life, and don’t want to do it alone. Thank you to everyone who participated, to those who organized their own local event, and to everyone who joined in online. Let’s take a look at some of what went on.
Nigeria’s power grid is not reliable and waiting around isn’t going to make the problem any better. The gathering in Lagos spent World Create Day talking about ways to overcome power grid problems and improve access to electricity for everyone.
Cape Town, South Africa had a huge turnout! They had speakers, lightning talks, project presentations, and broke into smaller groups to brainstorm ideas.
The Perth meetup talked about ways to administer donations to the homeless. The idea behind this is that people no longer carry a lot of cash. They envision an NFC-based system that will let you use your phone to scan a tag for a person in need or a charity organization. The donated money can be redeemed at food markets, for health care, and the like.
Over in Adelaide they had a full-blown hackathon. Above you can see one of the breakout groups being interviewed about their creation. Among the builds that came out of this are the Internet of Trash, City-wide Water Leakage monitoring, and Local Area Notice Screens.
The Nagpur, India meetup was held at MakerWorks and had attendees from 15 to 50 years of age. They even had a team member video conference in for the brainstorming.
Over in Bangalore, Workbench Projects hosted a World Create Day meetup. As part of the event, lightning talks were given to discuss the ideas being worked on. Above you can see [Akshath Indusekhar] talking about his project to control carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles.
Here are three of the meetups that were hosted in the US. Austin, Texas had quite a turnout which made for a day of meeting new people and talking about what the future will bring. I actually spoke about the Hackaday Prize via video conference for the San Jose, California Meetup. I know some of these jokers and they greeted me with my favorite Hackaday comment “not a hack” as you can see above. And there was a day of fun in Pasadena, California as the vibrant Hackaday community there brainstormed technology solutions and gave lightning talks.
In Munich, Germany, the meetup took to the ocean. They were working on new ideas for undersea exploration. The Oratava Hackerspace in the Canary Islands of Spain checked in on World Create day. In addition to tossing around some ideas they were showing off the stickers we sent them.
At the Oxford Hackspace in the UK they took a very democratic route to working as a team. Above you can see their notes from discussing preliminary ideas for dealing with mosquitoes, cognitive dementia, transaction protection for vulnerable people, the digital nanny, and using blockchain for the food commodity market. After a vote, they spent the rest of the afternoon working on cognitive dementia issues.
We heard from the meetup in Mexico City that they had eleven people take part and the atmosphere was different from what they’re used to. It sounds like a lot of the hackathons in the area are competitive and that can dampen collaboration. Their World Create Day was marked with open sharing of ideas and a strong feeling of community that resulted in some ideas for remote notifications for refilling gas tanks before they run dry.
Elsewhere in Mexico there was a meetup in Tangamandapio that broke into groups and then presented at the end of the event. We even heard from a group in Managua, Nicaragua who started off their day getting inspired by watching the videos of finalists from the last two years of the Hackaday Prize
See all the Tweets that came in by using the #WorldCreateDay hashtag. If you have pictures from your own meetup, we still want to see them so please post using that hashtag! We have also collected some of them together.
Getting together in person pollinates ideas and spreads happiness. It has tangible value beyond a text message, a Tweet, or even a video call because the things said in between meaningful conversations often trigger the next interesting topic. We’re excited that so many of you jumped at the opportunity to gather for an afternoon of fun and we can’t wait to see what happens next.
I like the NFC tag idea mention by the Perth group.
Did the come up with ways to prevent the person with the tag from converting the charity to drugs, alcohol, etc.?
Hi Ren,
The intent was to also minimally issue an eftpos/debit card linked to the NFC card and a HelpingHand online account. The services would be redeemable at selected service providers, so as to prevent the use of credit for drugs, etc via EFTPOS or NFC reader or by logging into the account to disburse funds.
Hi Ren,
Thanks for the comment.
The intent was to also minimally issue an eftpos/debit card linked to the NFC card and a HelpingHand online account. The services would be redeemable at selected service providers, so as to prevent the use of credit for drugs, etc. The physical disbursement would occur via EFTPOS/debit card or NFC reader or by logging into the account to disburse funds.
It is an odd idea because in Australia they have a social safety-net and financial benefits to all who genuinely need them, they also have free health care. Some huge amount, about 30%, of all all government tax income goes into this system. In many ways they are more socialist than even the Chinese are, as far as what is deliverable to 100% of the population. What homeless people need is, a home, and often that means one that is set up to help them cope with the fact that they have probably got some form of mental illness.
“After a vote, they spent the rest of the afternoon working on cognitive dementia issues.”
IOW, they voted that they spend the rest of the time in a pub lifting pints.
B^)
I would go if I had known of it earlier… I was 8 hours late on the news XD
I don’t know why Mike downplayed this. This is not just incredible, it is miraculous.
Hahaha, it’s a miracle! I really think that getting together and making stuff is the social club of our age. You can sit at home and veg on TV, or rage on video games. You can build stuff in your basement — but you’ll always want to show it off to someone or ask for advice. Having a regular meetup of people building cool stuff makes a lot of sense and I think Saturday’s turnout shows that.
Mike downplayed this?
This endeavor isn’t designed to suit my country at all. It may be fine in the US where you can drive through 3 states in a day and every city has every facility you could need. Here in my country we need a timely and strong communication medium to communicate all the required information so that people can organize the trip.
My country is the size of the US and there were only two meetups. Nothing says it better than that!
One was 2,983.6km from me and the other was 5,269.9km.
I initially considered organizing and hosting a meetup but once I saw the complete lack of organized communication at your end I immediately dropped the idea.
We are used to traveling very long distances in this country but there difference in organization.
We don’t drive 400km to say giday to a neighbor unless we know they will be home.
We don’t drive off to some random location without knowing how much extra fuel (gas) we need to carry to get between fuel stations unless you like death because that is the outcome around here. That’s probably important.
On long trips we like to know where the toilets are. Can we get food somewhere? Is there a motel along the way? Will the meetup be safe for kids? Whats the best roads to use? Are any roads closed? Can I get there in a conventional vehicle or do I need to bring the 4WD. Which way do I have to go if I only have a conventional car? What are the things that kill you around there … crocodiles, snakes, spiders, drop bears and how do I avoid them.
Townsville North Queensland? Just a guess by the geographical hints.
I’m in the Seattle area and… same situation, more or less. The entire NW corner of the US was unmotivated, it would seem. In fact it seems all of the states who legalized certain things were unmotivated.
Very close, more crocks and less snakes here. Cairns is where I am at for the moment.
I am hoping this becomes a regular event but at the same time I hope HAD can get over their Mericanisms. They are after all trying to be an international media.
What I thing they need to do is simply ask people from different places, what makes your boat float over there and how do we make things happen there.
” The entire NW corner of the US was unmotivated, ”
That might have something to do with recreational/medicinal marijuana.
B^)
@RÖB
You raise good points, but I want to point out that “same size as the US” is a bit misleading when the top half of your country is uninhabitable wasteland. :V
I live very high up in the top half of Australia. Our city has about 150,000 people.
It was hardly American, though. Looking at the map, it was US, EU, and India. I.e. places where people read Hackaday, with English-language and all that. Objectively, there was a big-city bias, because cities are where the people are (and probably also where the tech jobs are).
The real surprise is that there was nothing going on in S. America. We have Brazilian, Colombian, and Argentine readers!
But yeah. Australia is big and empty. And what’s up with Syndney giving us the cold shoulder? We thought we were friends!
A specifically Australian Response.
Quote: “It was hardly American, though. Looking at the map, it was US, EU, and India. I.e. places where people read Hackaday, with English-language and all that ”
What we don’t English here.
Quote: “Objectively, there was a big-city bias, because cities are where the people are (and probably also where the tech jobs are)”
These two statement are in direct conflict.
“big city bias” and where do we have “big cities” well that would be America and yet you describe this as “hardly American”
And Sydney??? no one from the northern hemisphere travels to Sydney first. They come here first – right on my door step. Why? Because apart from having a lot of nice friendly Australians, Sydney is just like an American city (but much smaller), on the other hand we have a wonder of the world on my doorstep. Where I am is *totally* different to anywhere else in the world and that is what people come here for – to get away!
The US is more friends with my home place. Now where’s the cold shoulder?
Anyway, in closing, I am a big fan here and I congratulate you on taking on this huge task. And the initial response has been quite positive and that’s a sign that success is on the horizon. I however believe that you need to have a listne to other people in other countries so that you can understand the obstacles that confront them.