In order to innovate you have to try a new approach.
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This is the sentiment held by 28-year-old Hackagong founder Nathan Waters.
Mr Waters will be in Bega for this year’s 2016 Regional Innovation Week and he brings with him a new approach to the hackathon phenomena.
“A mate of mine at Wollongong University was trying to mix the arts and the IT faculties together to mix different people together and that’s what we’re trying to do,” he said.
“It’s about creating serendipity and juxtaposition so we get people with all different skills and then we hope we get a mashing and mixing of ideas.”
A hackathon sees computer programmers and others involved in software development and hardware development get together and collaborate intensively on software projects.
Mr Waters is looking to try something a little different this year and combine the philosophy of a “bush-doof” outdoor concert with the hackathon concept – a bush-hack.
“I’m not expecting people to sit in front of a computer for 30 hours like a usual hackathon,” he said.
“We are really pushing the idea that it is an adventure because it is essentially a hackathon with camping.”
Mr Waters said the birth of the hackathon occurred around the possibility of creating a startup business from its outcome.
“A startup can be scary so we try to ease people into it by getting them together first to collaborate, then hopefully something can come from that afterwards,” he said.
“We want to generate a culture where young people don’t have to leave.”
Mr Waters runs a real estate startup and as is the case with most creative people he has a lot on his plate.
“At the moment I have about seven or eight projects on at once so I need to get rid of a few and focus,” he said with a laugh.
The week of innovation will be held between April 27 and May 3, and is an initiative of the Into IT Sapphire Coast online community.
Other personalities at the event include Birdsnest CEO Jane Cay, Flux software creator Max Kaye, Head of Canberra Innovation Network Dr Sarah Pearson, Bega Cheese CEO Aidan Coleman, Ernst & Young’s Alison De Kleuver, SoftLayer’s Brendan Yell, and StartSoc and iCentral’s Pete Cooper.
Other events during the week will include an entrepreneurs startup camp where participants can discover the concept of “Sector Seeding” and join domain experts from local industries and digital technology professionals in a challenge to reinvent their sectors.
There will be a Questacon Expo, offering a series of workshops with a strong 3D printing theme.
The Future of Code will explore the move to service oriented architecture and what this might mean for businesses and a regional CIO conference will give IT professionals from the region the opportunity to network.
An Engineering Day brings together engineers from around the region and a Minecraft Camp will open people’s eyes to the fascinating world of the popular computer game.
