Students interested in using mobile media for social justice projects, we are pleased to let them know of a mobile media development contest (often called a "hackathon) that Gary Kebbel will be hosting this Friday and Saturday, with much-needed assistance from Matt Waite and student Cody Elmore. With funding from the Ford Foundation, Gary will be offering $1,000 prizes to the three teams with the best projects.
The goal is to bring together journalism, ADPR, computer science and design students, along with any others, to work in multidisciplinary teams to create a mobile website or app that could help Ford Foundation's social justice grantees in Africa. The event is open to anyone. If you are interested in finding and organizing documents, data or other information that could be distributed via mobile media and could benefit a variety of projects in Africa, please attend. You do not need to know computer programming. You will be placed on a team with programmers and others.
The event will be in Andersen 15 from 4-9 p.m. Friday and 10 a.m. - 3 p.m. Saturday. Friday dinner and Saturday breakfast and lunch will be provided.
The winners will be asked to speak at a mobile media conference Nov. 30 at the Omaha World-Herald, which is also funded by the Ford Foundation.