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International Science Hack Day has begun!

‘Science Hack Day is where great ideas come to life. This unusual over-night environment will spark creativity, innovation and collaboration. –

David Fahy, Director, Dublin City of Science 2012

International Science Hack Day kicked off in Dublin today, Saturday 3rd March. This Science Hack Day is one of the key events in the Dublin City of Science programme of events for 2012. (a programme of over 160 science related events throughout 2012)

Science Hack Day Dublin is an all-day and all-night event (36 hours) where over 120 scientists, engineers, programmers and designers join forces to find solutions (hacks) for scientist’s problems during a brief but intense period of collaboration.

The event, taking place in Dublin City University (DCU), begins with two rounds of lightening talks where scientists (or those with an interesting idea) can pitch project ideas to teams of programmers, hackers, engineers and designers who then form teams to work on the projects over the next 36 hours period.

What is a hack?

 

A hack is a quick solution to a problem – maybe not the most elegant solution, but often the cleverest. REAL hacking is finding clever solutions to problems or finding new ways to use tools, equipment or data to find solutions to problems or to create something new.

This collaborative approach to problem solving (hacking) has produced significant results in other cities – with the most recent Science Hack Day in San Francisco covering a wide variety of scientific projects. Dublin’s Science Hack Day Ambassador Dr. David McKeown’s team won the Best Government Data Award in San Francisco for a smart phone based early-warning notification system for earthquakes.

The first Science Hack Days were held in London and San Francisco in 2010 – Ariel Waldman, founder of San Francisco Science Hack Day commented on the Dublin Science Hack Day, ‘Dublin clearly has a strong community of passionate geeks, already bridging gaps between science, technology and art. Science Hack Day Dublin is the perfect spark to ignite future collaborations and ideas between these communities and anyone who wants to get excited and make things.’

Projects for Science Hack Day Dublin include; looking at ways to use interactive gaming for rehabilitation of stroke victims’ coordination and the development of a tool to inform developers on the accessibility of their website. There is a project centred on the use of an interactive web page to enable children to log their weekly physical activity behaviour with a view of increasing children’s activity towards a healthier lifestyle. Also a team at Science Hack Day Dublin will examine ways for non-experts to know when to go aurora hunting (Northern Lights).

Science Hack Days have become an international trend. Dublin will be the 6th city in the world to run a Science Hack Day after London, San Francisco, Mexico City. Cincinnati and Cape Town with another 24 planned to run throughout 2012.

Demonstrations of the Science Hack Day Dublin projects will commence at 2:50pm on Sunday 5th in DCU with the winning project Teams scheduled to be announced at 5pm.

Notes to Editors:

Science Hack Day Dublin is being run as part of the Dublin City of Science 2012 programme festival and Engineers Week. Science Hack Day Dublin relies on a large team of volunteers, from different creative community groups (Irish Robotics Club, Dublin Hackerspace TOG, Redbrick and The Hub, DCU) and is being coordinated by Dr. David McKeown and Science Communicator Ellen Byrne.

 

Science Hack Day Dublin is supported by CarTrawler, Fingal Open Data and Engineers Ireland and is being run in association with Dublin City of Science 2012, who all help keep the event free and openly accessible.

Science Hack Day Dublin is taking place in The Hub in Dublin City University on Saturday the 3rd and Sunday the 4th of March, 2012.