CW16 Collaborative Ideas

The Collaborative Ideas session is used to get people talking about their work. You can discuss the work you're doing, work you would like to do, or problems you are facing. Other people in the group can then talk about how they could help get your new project off the ground, or help solve the problem you are facing.  This is an excellent way of generating projects Ideas for the Hackday.

hands on laptop keyboard

Record of ideas from CW16

Do you want your collaborative idea to make it to the Hackday?

Some ideas are so good that they simply need to be realised. This is where the Hackday comes in: at the end of the Collaborative Ideas session, you can state whether your idea should be pitched during the Hackday.

If you want your idea to be submitted to the Hackday, someone in your group must nominate themselves as the Hackday Idea Proposer (the person who will pitch the idea at the start of the Hackday in an attempt to attract a team to work on the idea). The Hackday idea proposer must put their name and email address in the appropriate fields of the Ideas form (see below for detail). If these fields are left blank, the idea will not be carried through to the Hackday.

Which group am I in?

First of all, find out which group you are in, and which room you will be using:

What to do at the Collaborative Ideas session

Once you arrive at your room:

  1. Introduce yourselves!
  2. Select a Chair and a Scribe
  3. Take it in turns to introduce something about your work that is important to you. It can be anything: a new project you want to get started, a policy that you want to see adopted, the skeleton of a concept that you want flesh out, a tool that you want built, a problem that you face - anything! If it's on your mind and you think discussing it with a group of leading researchers and software developers could help, then this is the place to discuss it.
  4. Make a decision about which idea is most likely to be taken forward. Selecting only one idea can be very difficult! (Even if your idea isn't taken forward during the session, you can submit it yourself later during the workshop).
  5. Help the scribe complete the Collaborative Ideas form.

Notes for the Scribe

The scribe should record some notes about the group's idea in the Collaborative Ideas form. It should take about ten minutes to fill out the form. It is best to make notes in a local file and then paste them into the form when you are ready. The information needed is:

  1. Idea Title
  2. Context/Research Domain: one or two sentences that will help us understand where the idea comes from: a specific field of research, a general field of work or something wider.
  3. Problem: a couple of sentences that describe the problem that the idea will help solve (25-100 words)
  4. Solution: a couple of sentences that describes how the idea will help solve the problem (200-500 words)
  5. Diagram/illustration URL: please provide a link to a diagram or image that supports your idea. It could be something you've created yourself (paper will be available on the day, or you can create something on a computer), or it could be an existing image from the web.
  6. Team members: although non-mandatory, please provide the names of the people in your group. This allows us to trace the idea back to its originators (and if your team should win the prizes then we can get them to the right people).
  7. Hackday Idea Proposer: as discussed above, if you would like this idea to be taken to the hack day, please provide the name of the hackday pitch leader. It is the pitch leader's job to describe the idea during the pitching session, and try to attract people to work on the idea during the hack day.
  8. Idea Proposer's email address: an email address for the pitch leader.
  9. After submitting your idea you can continue to work on it, fleshing out ideas and even starting work on the pitch for the hackday, or you can work on a second idea.

Some information about the Hackday

The hackday is not limited to the ideas that came from the Collaborative Ideas sessions: anyone can suggest a hack by filling out the Ideas form at any point during the workshop.

Hackday - pitching an idea

If you are the Hackday idea proposer, or part of a team who wishes to work on an idea during the Hackday, you will need to put together a pitch. The pitching session takes place on Tuesday 22 March starting at 19.00. The pitch should:

  • Last three minutes in total
  • Be clear about the problem you aim to solve and the way in which the solution will be realised
  • Be clear about the skills you think the group needs
  • Should be of the right scale that 3-6 people can make some headway within 24 hours
  • Be clear about the benefit and impact of the idea to attract people to join your group!

Ideas mean prizes

Not all ideas from the collaborative ideas session will go on to be used in the Hackday, but there will be a prize for the best Collaborative ideas regardless of whether they makes it to the Hackday. All the ideas will be printed and added to a poster board. Anyone at the workshop can vote for their favourite idea.

Where do I submit, and where can I see the submissions?