The Northern Cape Department of Economic Development and Tourism (DEDaT) is hosting a hackathon for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) together with Geekulcha.
It’s important that people understand what the SKA is, its role in the advancement of science and how it will impact their lives; SKAHack will seek to bring about “SKA Knowledge” and unearth innovation that can bring about socio-economic change.
A massive amount of data will be mined through SKA telescopes, and there are questions around how useful it’s going to be. People want to know what we’re going to do with it; will we have access to it; what type of solutions can we develop/make with it? The SKAHack is one of the methods we can use to answer these questions.
SKAHack will be hosted in Kimberley at the SMME village in the Galeshewe township on the 12th and 13th of March. Space is limited to 120 participants; programmers, data science students and activists, designers, journalists, government officials and more are welcome to apply.
Skills capacity is one of the aspects that SKA Africa is trying to address; the SKAHack will further efforts to drive this by bringing the SKA Engineers, Geeks brigade, Code4SA, CSIR Data Scientists and Friends from Kenya (LakeHub) on board, to help the hackers with skills they need. In promotion of STEM careers, high school students will also be taking part. There really is something for everyone.
We are also looking for local collaborators and we are thrilled to have the Northern Cape Entrepreneurs network and the Diamond Creative Vision Hub as one of the partners for the event.
SKAHack Details:
- Date: 12th – 13th march, 2016
- Time: 09:00 12th march – 16:00 13th March
- Place: Galeshewe SMME Village – Unit 7. Cnr Tyala & Hulana. Kimberley, Northern Cape 8335 ZA (Click for Google Maps)
- Entry price: Free
- Register your place
Tiyani Nghonyama is the COO of Geekulcha, an organisation dedicated to improving access to tech careers for South African students.
[Image – via Wikimedia]
