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Al Jazeera hosts its inaugural Canvas hackathon
Doha – 26/11/2014: Al Jazeera is organizing its first ever hackathon event where some of the most innovative minds in media and technology from around the globe will convene to work together and collaborate on this year’s theme “Media in Context”. The inaugural event titled Canvas will be held in the Qatar National Convention Center in Doha from November 29, 2014 through December 1, 2014.
As part of Al Jazeera’s Innovation & Research Group commitment to explore and create concepts, ideas, and solutions at the intersection of media and technology, 80 finalists have been selected among 1,600 applicants from around the world to participate in this year’s hackathon.
“We believe that exploring new forms of contextually-aware media at this year’s hackathon will help us better serve our audiences. With the help of our partners for this year’s Canvas, we are creating a space to explore and invent solutions to challenges that advance humanity and build the foundation for years of media and technology research to come” said Dr. Yaser Bishr, Executive Director of Strategy and Development.
The 90 finalists represent the diversity of the event in skill, region, gender and age. The largest percentage of applicants and finalists were from North America (27%), Europe (24%) and MENA region (20%); with a gender balance of 60% male and 40% female participants. Most of them are developers (45%) with an additional group (26%) who have joint skills as media professionals and developers. 40% were within the age of 25-30 and 34% from ages 18-24.
The Canvas program will challenge participants to explore and invent solutions that will push forward media technologies. The participants will be divided into teams to work on these challenges with the help of mentors and judges; such as George Akra (TootCorp), Gianluca Brugnoli (Frog Design), Matt Carroll (MIT Media Lab), Joseph Germuska (Northwestern University Knight Lab), Ian Gill (McConnell Foundation), Ossama Hassanein (Tech Wadi); Miranda Mulligan (Northwestern University Knight Lab); Mohamed Nanabhay (Global Voices Online); Matteo Penzo (Frog Design) and Christopher Wink (Technical.ly) among others.
The judges will assign prizes to the best creations. The hackathon prize pool includes $25,000 cash as well as a variety of swag items. Each of the teams that win one of the 5 major awards will receive $3,000 cash. These five major prizes correspond to one of the five themes in the Judging Criteria. The prizes will be for “Most Innovative”, “Greatest Potential for Use”, “Greatest Impact on Media, Journalism, or Technology”, “Highest Technical and Design Quality”, and “Best Embodiment of the Values of Al Jazeera and the Journalism Profession”.
Minor awards will also be given $1,000 cash for best 7 solutions addressing challenges in Production Phase, Distribution Phase, Consumption Phase, Personal Context, Situational Context, Cultural/Historical Context, and Editorial Context.
As a part of Al Jazeera’s ongoing engagement with its audiences, Al Jazeera calls on its audiences to vote for the “Community Favourite Award” which will be solicited and conducted for two weeks. All submitted solutions from all teams and their presentations will be listed on the Canvas website with public voting capabilities after the Media in Context hackathon. At the end of the voting period, the “Community Favorite Award” will be given to the team with the solution that receives the greatest number of votes from the community.
To Vote: http://canvas.aljazeera.com
As part of Al Jazeera’s Innovation & Research Group commitment to explore and create concepts, ideas, and solutions at the intersection of media and technology, 80 finalists have been selected among 1,600 applicants from around the world to participate in this year’s hackathon.
“We believe that exploring new forms of contextually-aware media at this year’s hackathon will help us better serve our audiences. With the help of our partners for this year’s Canvas, we are creating a space to explore and invent solutions to challenges that advance humanity and build the foundation for years of media and technology research to come” said Dr. Yaser Bishr, Executive Director of Strategy and Development.
The 90 finalists represent the diversity of the event in skill, region, gender and age. The largest percentage of applicants and finalists were from North America (27%), Europe (24%) and MENA region (20%); with a gender balance of 60% male and 40% female participants. Most of them are developers (45%) with an additional group (26%) who have joint skills as media professionals and developers. 40% were within the age of 25-30 and 34% from ages 18-24.
The Canvas program will challenge participants to explore and invent solutions that will push forward media technologies. The participants will be divided into teams to work on these challenges with the help of mentors and judges; such as George Akra (TootCorp), Gianluca Brugnoli (Frog Design), Matt Carroll (MIT Media Lab), Joseph Germuska (Northwestern University Knight Lab), Ian Gill (McConnell Foundation), Ossama Hassanein (Tech Wadi); Miranda Mulligan (Northwestern University Knight Lab); Mohamed Nanabhay (Global Voices Online); Matteo Penzo (Frog Design) and Christopher Wink (Technical.ly) among others.
The judges will assign prizes to the best creations. The hackathon prize pool includes $25,000 cash as well as a variety of swag items. Each of the teams that win one of the 5 major awards will receive $3,000 cash. These five major prizes correspond to one of the five themes in the Judging Criteria. The prizes will be for “Most Innovative”, “Greatest Potential for Use”, “Greatest Impact on Media, Journalism, or Technology”, “Highest Technical and Design Quality”, and “Best Embodiment of the Values of Al Jazeera and the Journalism Profession”.
Minor awards will also be given $1,000 cash for best 7 solutions addressing challenges in Production Phase, Distribution Phase, Consumption Phase, Personal Context, Situational Context, Cultural/Historical Context, and Editorial Context.
As a part of Al Jazeera’s ongoing engagement with its audiences, Al Jazeera calls on its audiences to vote for the “Community Favourite Award” which will be solicited and conducted for two weeks. All submitted solutions from all teams and their presentations will be listed on the Canvas website with public voting capabilities after the Media in Context hackathon. At the end of the voting period, the “Community Favorite Award” will be given to the team with the solution that receives the greatest number of votes from the community.
To Vote: http://canvas.aljazeera.com
