Hacklands Festival of Technology happening on 14 to 16 August 2015 in a field in Kent

It has been action stations at my end, what with Swedish Beers Midsummer Edition in London last month and the upcoming Hacklands Festival of Technology happening next month. In case you haven’t heard about it already, let me tell you a bit more about my new event lovechild – Hacklands.

 
WHAT: Hacklands is a new hackathon and festival happening on a farm on the border of Kent and Surrey brought to you by Helen Keegan (Heroes of the Mobile Fringe Festival, Swedish Beers and more) and James Tagg, (author, farmer, entrepreneur, physicist and CTO & co-founder of Truphone).

WHEN: From 5pm on Friday 14 August to 5pm on Sunday 16 August 2015.

AUDIENCE: We welcome adults and children who have an interest in technology either because they like building it or because they like to use it and are interested in future uses of technology. Under 18s will need to be accompanied by an adult. You do not have to be a developer to come. We will have sessions and space for both developers and non-developers and can cater for children too.


TELL ME MORE: It is a community oriented festival where we will combine elements of a hackathon (you can code and build stuff), an unconference or barcamp (you can talk about stuff) and a festival (you can chill at our campfire by our stone circle, camp under the stars, talk until the wee hours and enjoy the music and performances).

And we have glamping too courtesy of our friends at Sleeping Bells. We actively encourage you to get involved to build something, talk about something, perform something or learn something.

Interested in doing something - leading a session, giving access to APIs, arts and crafts, something else? Please tell us when you buy your ticket or you can fill in the form here.

WHAT'S ON: We have several areas available to use for unconference sessions, workshops or hacking (that's what we call the software and hardware building bit). There are undercover spaces, tented areas and outdoor spaces. There's wifi across the site (even the fields) and part of the farm is solar powered. We have some flat concrete floors which will be particular good for playing around with robots or landing drones. We have room for camping and plenty space for parking. We can look after 100 people comfortably, and we can make more space available if more people want to come.

Weekend tickets available now with or without camping. Food included in both tickets and a pay cafe bar available outside of meal times.

Find out more at our website, Facebook page, Twitter or our Eventbrite page. You can also buy tickets by clicking below.

If you'd like the glamping option, please find out more here and contact Gavin directly to book. Prices start at £80. Festival tickets must be bought separately.  

See you in August in a field in Kent!

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OpenMIC Mobile Innovation Event in Bath on 2 April 09

The lovely folks at DCKTN and OpenMIC have reminded me this morning about their upcoming event in Bath - It's a barcamp style unconference for discussion, debate and developing new mobile applications and mobile web services. And the lovely Dan Appelquist is one of the featured speakers, although anyone gets a chance to host or lead a session just by putting their name and idea forward. That's how a barcamp works for those of you who've never done one before.

openMIC Mobile Innovation Camp explores recent platform developments and aims to arm the attendee with the knowledge and skills to execute ideas for mobile apps (Symbian, iPhone, Android) and take them to market. The attendee will also learn how to create mobile web applications that utilise the new openness of the operator. In the afternoon attendees will join teams to develop application ideas into a tactical plan with possible investment to develop it further as an outcome.

Preparing for the event: openMIC attendees are encouraged to come to the event with an idea for a mobile application in mind. Ideas can be commercial or to instigate social or charitable purposes. Before the event attendees should suggest application and service ideas using the openMIC page at http://openmicamp.ning.com/ All ideas suggested are open and owned by the break out group that mobilizes to develop them.

Date: Thursday 2nd April 2009
Time: Welcome 9am, Drinks, Entertainment and Networking throughout the day
Venue: Bath Ventures Innovation Centre, Broad Quay, Bath, BA1 1UD
Cost: FREE

Who should attend: DIY developers, ideas people, operators, innovators -> anyone passionate and interested in open group development of new mobile apps for commercial or social use.

Sponsors: Silicon South West and Bath Ventures

For more info please email P[dot]Turgut[at]bath[dot]ac[dot]uk to register your interest and join the group over at http://openmicamp.ning.com/

More linkage

I guess it's one of those days - so much to write about, so little time, so a few more links are just going to have to do you...

• The Mobile Goldmine event looks an interesting one where you can explore how to make money with mobile content. It's on October 17th in the evening and limited to just 50 places. And the price? Absolutely FREE (but you do need to book in advance).

• New research out from Netimperative in conjunction with Q Research about 'Young Minds'. They interviewed 3,000 eleven to twenty-five year olds for the four reports including two on mobile - Mobile Music and Mobile Advertising. A synopsis of what's covered can be found over at the Netimperative website. Reports are usually £1,000 each, but you can get all four for £2,500. I don't s'pose the nice folks at NetImperative would like to give me a copy of the mobile reports for review here maybe...?

• Barcamp Mobile London is happening on Saturday 29th September in Soho. Aimed at designers/ developers/ entrepreneurs/ artists working on mobile applications, devices, and experiences. From FlashLite and mobile Processing to openMoko, Green Phone and the iPhone. "The idea is to create a camp where hackers and designers can come and play together. If you do stuff with small screens, voice, or something in between, come and share. mobileCampLondon is about big idea evangelism, and nitty-gritty details. We’ll look at what matters most: well crafted code, and a solid understanding of how people use their phones."

So if this is your thing, then Mobile Bar Camp London is well worth a look. Find out more about the whole Bar Camp movement over at wikipedia to get a flavour of what to expect.

• Mobstar joins up with this weekend's V Festival to offer a virtual mobile flame amongst other things. I would tell you what they are, but they're exclusive to Virgin Mobile customers. You know what, you've missed a trick here guys 'n gals... A chance to make extra revenue (charge non-Virgin customers more), ask someone if they want to know more about the advantage of being on Virgin vs whatever network the customer has come in on (for they know the operator in 9 cases out of 10 so could personalise it), a chance for data capture, a call to action to check out a Virgin shop or the Virgin Mobile stand at the festival. Come on peeps, it's not good enough to simply say 'This is only for Virgin Mobile customers' and alienate the 10s of 1000s of customers of other networks who've paid good money to attend the V Festival. Mr Branson would *not* be proud methinks. Grrr.