Journalism students and software developers launch hackathon

Cardiff University’s Centre for Community Journalism and Computational and Data Journalism MSc are holding a free weekend hackathon on 11 and 12 June, as part of Cardiff University’s Summer of Innovation festival.

Hack the Local will bring together journalism students, community and mainstream journalists and software developers to build new apps and platforms based around local news challenges. Teams will compete for prizes whilst being provided expert guidance in data and community journalism.

Prizes include:

• Tableau Desktop Professional Edition licenses for every member of a winning team, sponsored by Tableau
• Chromecast Audio Devices for every member of a winning team, sponsored by Google News Lab
• Hosting vouchers for every member of a winning team, sponsored by National Software Academy

Cardiff and South Wales are home to some of the most innovative journalism and data projects in the UK, including the Computational and Data Journalism MSc, the Centre for Community Journalism, National Software Academy and Y Lab Wales.

The aim of Hack the Local is to highlight the exciting work already happening in South Wales and South West, as well as encourage new collaborations between journalists, developers and those providing open data in the public sector.

The two-day event is entirely free and is funded by Cardiff University’s City Region Exchange. Attendees will also be invited to an evening reception sponsored by Seasons.

Free registration for the event: http://bit.ly/HackTheLocalTickets

Background

The Centre for Community Journalism, one of Cardiff University’s flagship engagement projects, supports and promotes best practice examples of innovation in the community news sector.

Cardiff University’s MSc in Computational and Data Journalism brings together expertise from the School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies and School of Computer Science & Informatics. It focuses on the development of knowledge and skills through research-informed learning in digital journalism, data science, computer coding and digital development.

For more information please contact Hannah Scarbrough on scarbroughh1@cardiff.ac.uk or call 029 208 70101.