tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/hackathons-25251/articlesHackathons – The Conversation2022-07-18T13:56:25Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1777272022-07-18T13:56:25Z2022-07-18T13:56:25ZHackathons should be renamed to avoid negative connotations<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454623/original/file-20220328-17-16qfxa6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4368%2C2909&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In hackathons, people come together to build more extensive and cohesive datasets.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Events where groups of people come together to create or improve software using large data sets are usually called hackathons. As health data researchers who want to build and maintain public trust, we recommend the use of alternative terms, such as datathon and code fest. </p>
<p>Hackathon is a portmanteau that combines the words “hack” and “marathon.” The “hack” in hackathon is meant to refer to a clever and improvised way of doing something rather than unauthorized computer or data access. From a computer scientist’s perspective, “hackathon” probably sounds innovative, intensive and maybe a little disruptive, but in a helpful rather than criminal way. </p>
<p>The issue is that members of the public do not interpret “hack” the way that computer scientists do. </p>
<p>Our team, and many others, have performed research studies to understand the public’s interests and concerns when health data are used for research and innovation. In all of these studies, we are not aware of any positive references to “hack” or related terms. But studies from <a href="https://doi.org/10.9778/cmajo.20180099">Canada</a>, <a href="https://www.arc-gm.nihr.ac.uk/media/Resources/ARC/Digital%20Health/Citizen%20Juries/New%2012621_NIHR_Juries_Report_WEB.pdf">the United Kingdom</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/hex.13268">Australia</a> have all found that members of the public consistently raise hacking as a major concern for health data.</p>
<h2>Fear of hacking</h2>
<p>It is not hard to figure out where negative associations with the word “hack” come from. There is a regular stream of news headlines, like: “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/12/world/canada/newfoundland-cyberattack.html">As Hackers Take Down Newfoundland’s Health-Care System, Silence Descends</a>”; “<a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/international-business/us-business/article-t-mobile-says-hackers-accessed-personal-data-of-another-53-million/">T-Mobile Says Hackers Accessed Personal Data of an Additional 5.3 Million Customers</a>”; and “<a href="https://www.wired.com/story/vastaamo-psychotherapy-patients-hack-data-breach/">They Told Their Therapists Everything. Hackers Leaked It All</a>.”</p>
<p>Taking the research studies and news headlines together, there are strong reasons to think that the term hackathon will be perceived as negative to members of the public. Based on the common use and understanding of hacking, the term hackathon could even be perceived as threatening if it is misinterpreted as referring to an event where computer scientists do unauthorized things with data.</p>
<p>Language is important when talking about health data — it helps to create transparency and build trust around managing people’s information and privacy. As such, words must be chosen carefully, and should be guided by the preferences and concerns of the people whose data are being used for research and innovation.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/plain-language-about-health-data-is-essential-for-transparency-and-trust-123319">Plain language about health data is essential for transparency and trust</a>
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<h2>Alternatives to hackathon</h2>
<p>There are alternatives to the term hackathon, but they are used much less frequently. For example, a Google search conducted in July 2022 returned 58.7 million results for “hackathon” compared to 617,000 results for “datathon” and 54,700 results for “code fest.” There were more than 90 references to “hackathon” for every “datathon” reference that the Google search identified. </p>
<p>In the research literature there is a slightly higher frequency of alternative terms, but hackathon still dominates. For example, a July 2022 Google Scholar search identified 30 times more scholarly “hackathon” publications than there were “datathon” publications.</p>
<p>Widespread use of the term hackathon may be reinforced by software libraries and dictionaries that perpetuate outdated and harmful terminology. For example, in the current version of Microsoft Word, “hackathon” is a recognized word but “datathon” is flagged as a spelling mistake. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473754/original/file-20220713-16-i1b7wc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Justin Trudeau addresses a large group of university students in a tiered lecture hall" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473754/original/file-20220713-16-i1b7wc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473754/original/file-20220713-16-i1b7wc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473754/original/file-20220713-16-i1b7wc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473754/original/file-20220713-16-i1b7wc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473754/original/file-20220713-16-i1b7wc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473754/original/file-20220713-16-i1b7wc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473754/original/file-20220713-16-i1b7wc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks to students attending Hack The North, Canada’s largest hackathon, in Waterloo, Ont., on Sept. 15, 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Hannah Yoon</span></span>
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<h2>Trustworthy language</h2>
<p>We are not saying that hackathons are bad, just that the label most commonly used for them is problematic. And it’s not as though we lack alternatives to the term hackathon. Another way of looking at the Google search results is that the term datathon has been used hundreds of thousands of times, including by well-known organizations such as the <a href="https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eudatathon">EU Datathon</a>.</p>
<p>Given public concerns about hacking and data, we recommend that datathon and other alternatives to hackathon be used more often. Words matter and using language like datathon can help organizations that hold or provide access to data show that they are attentive to the concerns of the people and communities that the data is about.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/177727/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>P. Alison Paprica receives funding from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR) and other provincial and federal Canadian research funders.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kimberlyn McGrail receives funding from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research and other funding agencies. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael J. Schull receives funding from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research and the Ontario Ministry of Health.</span></em></p>“Hackathons” can imply breaching security and privacy. To more accurately reflect their creative and constructive intent, they can be referred to instead as “datathons” or “code fests.”P. Alison Paprica, Professor (adjunct) and Senior Fellow, Institute for Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of TorontoKimberlyn McGrail, Professor of Health Services and Policy Research, University of British ColumbiaMichael J. Schull, Professor, Department of Medicine, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1369562020-04-30T03:41:54Z2020-04-30T03:41:54ZVirtual hackathons can help you solve coronavirus problems without leaving your home<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330957/original/file-20200428-110775-12rwq3h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=193%2C0%2C1851%2C1152&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsWJaTAOhaU">Screenshot of CoKids - Flatten The Curve Hack: Education Challenge Finalist</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you want to solve a problem quickly it helps to get many minds working together to find a solution, and that’s what happens in a hackathon.</p>
<p>It usually involves teams of people working over a short period of time to brainstorm an idea. But that’s not possible with the <a href="https://www.health.gov.au/news/health-alerts/novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov-health-alert/how-to-protect-yourself-and-others-from-coronavirus-covid-19/limits-on-public-gatherings-for-coronavirus-covid-19">current advice to avoid gatherings</a> thanks to the coronavirus pandemic.</p>
<p>That hasn’t stopped people embracing hackathons, this time to help solve some of the problems the pandemic itself has created. Instead of face-to-face meet-ups, though, people are doing them <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomokoyokoi/2020/04/16/the-hackathon-approach-to-covid-19-showcases-agile-innovation-at-its-best/">online in virtual hackathons</a>.</p>
<p>In these times of uncertainty, people are trying to embrace <a href="https://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/blog/2020/bringing-the-power-of-global-innovation-to-tackle-covid-19.html">creativity, innovation and collaboration</a> to develop and implement solutions to the challenges of COVID-19.</p>
<h2>How does a hackathon work?</h2>
<p>A typical <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-digital/our-insights/demystifying-the-hackathon">hackathon</a> usually starts with describing a problem, sketching a possible solution to that problem, designing that solution and then launching a prototype. </p>
<p>All this usually takes place over 24 to 48 hours.</p>
<p>At the end you will be exhausted. But you will have worked with a very diverse team to conceive, build and refine a working solution that hopefully can address a significant problem in society. </p>
<p>Some people assume you need to be a software engineer to participate in the hackathon. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Techstars is an organisation that helps start-up companies and it has organised a <a href="https://www.techstars.com/the-line/pov/calling-all-problem-solvers-unite-to-fight-covid-19-startup-weekend">coronavirus virtual hackathon</a> calling on people including: </p>
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<p>Developers, designers, marketers, nurses, doctors, students, scientists, teachers — anyone with an idea to tackle the challenges created by the global pandemic [is] welcome.</p>
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<p>This is possible because virtual hackathons are creating an open online environment where people from around the world can apply their particular skill sets in a diverse team to solve a global problem in a short time.</p>
<h2>A global effort</h2>
<p>Garage48 is an organisation that helps set up hackathons. It says it has already helped <a href="https://garage48.org/hackthecrisis">more than 55 hackathons around the world</a> that are trying to solve the global crisis of COVID-19. </p>
<p>Some of the most notable include: </p>
<p><strong>Global Hack:</strong> <a href="https://theglobalhack.com/results/">this global hackathon</a> had more than 12,000 participants from 100 countries. They worked on 500 life-changing projects including mental health, environment, governance and remote education solutions during COVID-19.</p>
<p>The winning team developed a solar-powered solution for accessible, affordable and barrier-free access to hand disinfection. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8172hcxn724?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">And the winner is: SunCrafter – solar-powered light disinfection.</span></figcaption>
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<p><strong>MIT COVID-19 Challenge:</strong> <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/hackathons-target-coronavirus-11586424603">this global hackathon</a> had more than 1,500 participants from 90 countries. They worked on 238 solutions for issues such as education online, food availability and emergency responses during COVID-19.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/state/mangaluru/manipal-students-win-mit-covid-19-challenge-822546.html">One of the winning teams</a>’ solution was to build a tele-health platform to allow the monitoring of vital signs such as heart rate and blood oxygen of patients at home to help ease pressure on hospital admissions. </p>
<h2>Teams Australia</h2>
<p>While some of these global hackathons are open to Australians, it doesn’t mean Australians can only participate in overseas hackathons. We have them here as well.</p>
<p><strong>ACS Flatten the Curve Hack:</strong> <a href="https://membership.acs.org.au/flattenthecurvehack.html">the Australian Computer Society</a> had more than 2,000 participants brainstorming over 48 hours to solve remote education, health system, future of work and mental health challenges during COVID-19.</p>
<p>One of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFO1yK88H2oi2GeT7AANu3g">finalists</a> was a team that built a computer game as a way to help children better understand COVID-19.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MsWJaTAOhaU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A finalist.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One of the reasons for the increase in virtual hackathons is that it is easy for people to participate online thanks to the technology underpinning them. </p>
<p>They incorporate a <a href="https://covid19challenge.mit.edu/africa-takes-on-covid19/">range of online tools and apps</a>, such as <a href="https://slack.com/intl/en-au/">Slack</a>, <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/microsoft-365/microsoft-teams/group-chat-software">Microsoft Teams</a> and <a href="https://discordapp.com">Discord</a>, as the communication platforms between team members around the world. </p>
<p>They also use Microsoft’s <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/microsoft-365/onedrive/online-cloud-storage">One Drive</a> and <a href="https://www.google.com/drive/">Google Drive</a> to share documents and files between team members.</p>
<p>Then using video-conferencing technology such as <a href="https://zoom.us">Zoom</a> and <a href="https://www.skype.com/en/">Skype</a> the teams can present the finalist to everyone around the world. </p>
<h2>Your help is needed</h2>
<p>Taking part in hackathons has a number of benefits, from <a href="https://theglobalhack.com/results/">financial awards</a> to <a href="https://covid.startupweekend.org">mentorship</a> to turn a team’s prototype into a possible profitable firm.</p>
<p>Beyond these rewards, the COVID-19 hackathons empower everyday people with the opportunity to implement in a short time a solution to a problem that is impacting everyone’s family members and friends.</p>
<p>Signing up to virtual hackathons is as easy as signing up to Netflix. All you need to do is find the hackathon that is addressing a problem you are interested in and sign up. </p>
<p>You do not even need to prepare team members beforehand, as you will find team members during the hackathon who will become new friends by the end of the competition.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/136956/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Geoffrey Mann does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>People are getting together online to brainstorm solutions to some of the challenges the pandemic has created.Geoffrey Mann, Sessional Lecturer, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1191822019-07-01T14:04:47Z2019-07-01T14:04:47ZTechnology can make collecting and analysing evidence for policy easier<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280678/original/file-20190621-61747-1yu7clp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">With so much research, data and evidence in the world, it's tough to pull it together in a useful way.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There is more and more research being produced around the world every day. In total, <a href="https://www.stm-assoc.org/2018_10_04_STM_Report_2018.pdf">about 3 million articles</a> are published every year.</p>
<p>That’s a lot of information, and a lot of evidence. But humans are finding it increasingly harder to read, analyse and assess so much data when trying to understand a particular topic, a process called <a href="https://evidencesynthesis.org/what-is-evidence-synthesis/">evidence synthesis</a>. This involves converting large bodies of scientific research – articles, reports and data – into reliable and digestible <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-new-dawn-should-be-built-on-evidence-based-policy-118129">evidence that can inform management or policy</a>. </p>
<p>So if humans might struggle to cope with the increasing volume of evidence needed to build effective, solid policy, what’s the solution? We think technology is the key. With accessible software tools and workflows, machines can be left to do the laborious work so that people can focus on planning, thinking and doing. That’s what prompted two of us (Neal and Martin) to create the <a href="https://www.eshackathon.org/2019/01/17/what_is_the_esh.html">Evidence Synthesis Hackathon</a> series.</p>
<p>This initiative was launched in 2017 to bring together world-leading and emerging researchers, practitioners and software developers to produce new Open Source tools and frameworks that support evidence synthesis. There have been three hackathons since then – two in Stockholm, and one in Canberra. They’ve drawn participants from 13 countries on six continents and led to 19 projects being initiated. </p>
<p>One such project is <a href="https://www.eshackathon.org/software/metafor-reports.html">metafor automated reports</a>, which automatically writes methods and results text for a particular statistical model (meta-analysis). This ensures that all the relevant information is included in any report in a consistent and reliable way.</p>
<p>Other projects include tools that help researchers visualise databases of studies to help identify gaps in global knowledge, and those that extract information from documents, like important data that describe the study location or its findings. We have also produced <a href="https://www.eshackathon.org/projects.html">discussion papers</a> that introduce new ways to think about evidence synthesis.</p>
<p>The hackathons, and other digital projects of this nature, are one way of creating a community of practice which together produces freely accessible tools and workflows. This helps to ensure the tools can speak to each other and reduces the risk of lots of different tools being produced that do the same thing.</p>
<h2>In practice</h2>
<p>Many of the outputs produced at the hackathons are already being used by researchers. One example is <a href="https://estech.shinyapps.io/eviatlas/">EviAtlas</a>. This is a tool for producing maps of evidence unearthed during systematic literature reviews. It converts a database into a set of attractive, interactive figures and tables that show patterns in the “evidence base” and where knowledge gaps and clusters might exist.</p>
<p>It also allows users to produce free, interactive websites displaying the nature of the evidence on a geographical map. This is something that would previously have been expensive and highly complex.</p>
<p>So, for instance if you wanted to know what research had been conducted on the impacts of buffer strips around farmland in temperate ecosystems in Africa, you could quickly and easily explore <a href="https://eviatlastest.github.io/">this interactive map</a> to find out.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280656/original/file-20190621-61756-151u3mc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280656/original/file-20190621-61756-151u3mc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280656/original/file-20190621-61756-151u3mc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280656/original/file-20190621-61756-151u3mc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280656/original/file-20190621-61756-151u3mc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280656/original/file-20190621-61756-151u3mc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280656/original/file-20190621-61756-151u3mc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">EviAtlas interactive web site.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ESHackathon</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Evidence synthesis, much like the primary research studies that the process is based on, can sometimes ignore specialist evidence from Africa – perhaps because researchers do not know the literature landscape as well as that from North America and Europe. Similarly, developing policies based on examples and evidence from developed world contexts doesn’t work for countries with very different contexts. That’s why it’s so encouraging that there’s a growing African presence at the hackathons.</p>
<h2>African participation</h2>
<p>Earlier in 2019, the Evidence Synthesis Hackathon was able to host three participants from the African continent, thanks to funding from the University of Johannesburg through the <a href="https://africacentreforevidence.org/">Africa Centre for Evidence</a>. </p>
<p>The three participants were integral to the discussions and coding work at the hackathon, and were instrumental in its success.</p>
<p>Two of the participants were experienced software programmers Christopher Penkin and Mandlenkosi Ngwenya. They produced a tool to keep track of and save web-based searches for research. Until now, this has been almost impossible to do in evidence syntheses. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.eshackathon.org/software/grey-lit-reporter.html">tool</a>, which is in the final stages of development, is a Chrome browser extension that logs user search information and downloads it into a central database. Internet searches are notoriously difficult to keep track of and report transparently, but this tool does the reporting for you, and also automatically saves all your search results in one place.</p>
<p>This represents a huge step forward in transparency, efficiency and repeatability, <a href="https://systematicreviewsjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13643-016-0371-9">and an important gap in the methodology until now</a>. All of this is crucial for rigorous evidence synthesis. </p>
<p>The third attendee from Africa, Witness Mapanga, is an evidence synthesis specialist. He worked with other top researchers on projects to build a brighter future for evidence use in policy. This work is due to be published by the end of the year.</p>
<h2>Building communities</h2>
<p>We’re planning a number of hackathons in 2019 and beyond – one of them in South Africa in 2020. Doing this will hopefully highlight what resource-constrained environments need from evidence synthesis and what they can produce.</p>
<p>In the long run, hackathons and similar events can be used to build communities of practice: networks of researchers, data scientists, and software developers focussed on driving progress towards a sustainable future. The Evidence Synthesis Hackathon represents a novel but increasingly important part of this new movement.</p>
<p><em>Mandlenkosi Ngwenya and Christopher Penkin contributed to this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/119182/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Neal Haddaway and Martin Westgate and The Evidence Synthesis Hackathon have received funding from Mistra EviEM (<a href="http://www.eviem.se/en">www.eviem.se/en</a>), the Australian National University, the University of New South Wales, The University of Johannesburg, and Neal Haddaway and Martin Westgate are the co-founders of the Evidence Synthesis Hackathon.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Westgate receives funding from the Sustainable Farms Initiative (<a href="http://www.sustainablefarms.org.au">http://www.sustainablefarms.org.au</a>).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Witness Mapanga received funding from the University of Johannesburg and University of Witwatersrand to attend the 2019 Evidence Synthesis Hackathon in Australia. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carina van Rooyen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>With accessible software tools and workflows, machines can be left to do the laborious work so that people can focus on planning, thinking and doing.Neal Robert Haddaway, Research Fellow, Africa Centre for Evidence, University of JohannesburgCarina van Rooyen, Senior researcher at the Africa Centre for Evidence, University of JohannesburgMartin Westgate, Research Fellow in Ecology & Evidence Synthesis, Australian National UniversityWitness Mapanga, Health Systems and Policy Researcher, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1007922018-08-05T09:47:17Z2018-08-05T09:47:17ZA new way to equip Africa’s science labs: get students to build their own<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230197/original/file-20180801-118933-kez3yl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Water urns become bioreactors with this clever design. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jeffrey Barbee, Alliance</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>How does one train science students without equipment? As a <a href="https://www.insis.ox.ac.uk/people/dr-louise-bezuidenhout">sociologist of science</a> specialising in African countries, this is a question I get asked with sad regularity. </p>
<p>How, African science, technology, engineering and maths educators ask me, can the next generation of globally competitive scientists be trained using teaching laboratories that lack even the most basic equipment? </p>
<p>One of the most basic elements of molecular biology, for example, is to learn about DNA: how genes are expressed and converted into proteins. To do this, students must able to conduct their own experiments – and for that, they need access to a <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/probe/docs/techpcr/">polymerase chain reaction</a> to amplify their DNA samples. </p>
<p>While teaching labs in the global North may have dozens of polymerase chain reaction machines, African departments may have just one per laboratory, if at all. Instead of being able to run their own DNA experiments, students in these labs have to work in groups or watch a demonstration by a tutor.</p>
<p>The critical importance of conducting practical experiments as well as learning theory sets science education apart from many other taught courses. The value of this practical training is two-fold: first, it provides an in-depth understanding of the biological systems that are being studied. Second, the practice of science in industry or academia is essentially a practical undertaking. Any graduate wishing to work as a scientist must have a good grasp of how to conduct experiments and produce data. </p>
<p>While there are increasing amounts of often free educational resources available online: videos, Massive Open Online Courses, papers and tutorials, they can’t make up for students getting their hands dirty – so to speak – at the lab bench</p>
<p>To truly understand their discipline, students need the opportunity to interact with laboratory equipment <a href="http://www.gettingpractical.org.uk/documents/EmmaWoodleyarticle.pdf">through practical instruction</a>. Learning how to conduct experiments and deal with both the successes and failures of bench science is <a href="http://sites.nationalacademies.org/cs/groups/dbassesite/documents/webpage/dbasse_073330.pdf">an important part</a> of developing as a scientist. The skills that students develop through practical experiments are also fundamental for progressing into successful graduate studies and research careers.</p>
<p>There’s been considerable recent support for science and related education in Africa. That includes a rising number of training programmes, graduate scholarships and research support. However, regional universities are still battling to properly equip teaching laboratories. There isn’t much money specifically earmarked for this task. Educators often have to rely on equipment bought out of hard-won grants, or rely on the increasingly aged equipment left over from forgotten past projects. New, imported equipment is prohibitively expensive. It’s also difficult to maintain. </p>
<p>This is why my colleagues <a href="https://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/people/helena.webb/">Helena Webb</a>, <a href="http://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/people/jason.nurse/">Jason Nurse</a>, <a href="https://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/people/marina.jirotka/">Marina Jirotka</a> and I designed <a href="https://labhackathon.wordpress.com/">LabHack</a>. It’s an event that aims to inspire budding innovators to take matters into their own hands and build the equipment they need to learn. Undergraduate student teams compete to design low-cost versions of basic laboratory equipment using hardware available in a local African context. Our first LabHack was held at the Harare Institute of Technology in Zimbabwe in June 2018. The resulting prototypes were highly inventive and far cheaper than anything that’s commercially available.</p>
<h2>Innovation in action</h2>
<p>During the Zimbabwe LabHack teams of students from four universities, as well as local hobbyists and one high school team, demonstrated their prototypes for low cost laboratory equipment built out of locally-available hardware. </p>
<p>All the teams were interdisciplinary, which was important not only for design issues but also offered a means of building strong links for future collaborations. </p>
<p>The teams were asked to design one of three types of basic but crucial lab equipment: a magnetic stirrer, a polymerase chain reaction machine, and a centrifuge. </p>
<p>There was also an open challenge for students to build other types of equipment that would be used in teaching their specific discipline of science. In this category entries included a digital microscope and a bioprocessor, which is used for culturing cells. </p>
<p>Each team was supplied with an Arduino kit, a single-board microcontroller that allows the equipment to be programmable. Apart from that they were self-funded and used easily available local resources. No team spent more than $100 on their final designs – a clear demonstration of how innovative thinking can produce highly inventive, working prototypes.</p>
<p>The teams also participated in a range of workshops hosted by local tech companies, which exposed students to emerging technologies like 3D printing and 3D scanning. Having these companies present their working models for tech-driven job creation in Zimbabwe also illustrated the possibilities of creating tech start-ups for possible future career choices.</p>
<h2>Smart prototypes</h2>
<p>The prize for best prototype went to a team that created a programmable centrifuge whose casing was predominantly designed out of plywood and cardboard. It was fully functional and significantly cheaper than any commercially-available models. Another winner created a centrifuge that relied on a motor taken from a toy car. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230387/original/file-20180802-136661-1m924j9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230387/original/file-20180802-136661-1m924j9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230387/original/file-20180802-136661-1m924j9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230387/original/file-20180802-136661-1m924j9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230387/original/file-20180802-136661-1m924j9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230387/original/file-20180802-136661-1m924j9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230387/original/file-20180802-136661-1m924j9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The winning centrifuge design.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jeffrey Barbee, Alliance Earth</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These innovations effectively demonstrated the potential for equipping low-resourced educational laboratories with low-cost alternatives to expensive, imported equipment. We are hoping – with enough funding and sponsorship – that the Zimbabwe event will be the first of many LabHacks on the African continent. These could build a new community of science learners who study science in Africa, on machines designed by Africans for an African context.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100792/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>LabHack Zimbabwe 2018 was sponsored by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council UK (EPSRC). It was a joint collaboration between Human Centred Computing (Department of Computer Science) and the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society (Department of Anthropology).</span></em></p>To truly understand their discipline, students need to interact with laboratory equipment. They must both fail and succeed at running experiments.Louise Bezuidenhout, Research fellow in science and technology studies/bioethics, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/542452016-03-02T23:04:23Z2016-03-02T23:04:23ZBesides feverish excitement, hackathons really can spur innovation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113005/original/image-20160226-18094-1j5zlng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=486%2C0%2C2739%2C1633&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A 360 of a hackathon in full flight.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Carbon Visuals/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>It’s 26 hours into the Random Hacks of Kindness hackathon, and I am on my ninth cup of coffee. We have just over five hours until “show and tell” time, when we need to have a working mobile app.</em> </p>
<p><em>Among the screwed-up butcher’s paper diagrams, leftover sandwiches and wafts of unshowered programmers in our corner of the office, one member of the group is staging an epic battle between jelly pythons, another is rewriting the video function of our app so that it will actually play video, and the third is having a change of heart entirely.</em> </p>
<p><em>“Do you think,” he asks, “we should maybe build a solar-powered coffee cart instead?”</em></p>
<p>This chaotic – but typical – scene occurred during a hackathon in Western Sydney last December. Focused on solving a small but challenging problem, hackathons involve intensive periods of brainstorming, coding, designing, testing – and often much coffee drinking. </p>
<p>Our event was one of the Random Hacks of Kindness (<a href="http://www.rhokaustralia.org/#what-is">RHoK</a>) series of hackathons also taking place in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. Run over a weekend twice a year, the RHoK events focus on projects with social impact. </p>
<p>They invite “change makers” – community organisations, social enterprises and committed individuals – to pitch a problem to teams of volunteers. At the end of the weekend, a group of judges choose a winning team, and provide all the teams with feedback for developing their projects further.</p>
<h2>Igniting the ‘Ideas Boom’</h2>
<p>Hackathons fit neatly with Australia’s recent rhetorical pivot towards technology and innovation. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s “<a href="http://www.innovation.gov.au/system/files/case-study/National%20Innovation%20and%20Science%20Agenda%20-%20Report.pdf">Welcome to the ideas boom</a>” invites the country to “create a culture that backs good ideas and learns from taking risks and making mistakes” and develop “greater collaboration between universities and businesses”. </p>
<p>Academics have been turning attention to the mechanisms that might enable such culture and collaboration. For instance, QUT’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/marcus-foth-199317">Marcus Foth</a> has suggested that Australia needs a “<a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-needs-an-innovation-skunkworks-51326">skunkworks</a>”. These are spaces of creative collaboration outside of routine organisational procedures that “attract, house, support and unleash innovators, makers, thinkers and doers”. </p>
<p>From their origins as informal late nights run by a handful of technology enthusiasts, hackathons have evolved into well-coordinated, multi-project and sponsored workshops. They include social entrepreneurs, designers, researchers and other professionals as well as coders. They offer the temporal equivalent of a space for collaboration across research, government, industry and community sectors. </p>
<p>But the rise of the hackathon has also invited scepticism. Do these novel “<a href="http://nms.sagepub.com.ezproxy.uws.edu.au/content/early/2016/02/10/1461444816629467.full.pdf+htm">proto-publics</a>” function as incubators for creativity and collaboration, as they claim? Or are they more like a technologically habilitated form of the military boot camp, the corporate retreat or the cult centre? </p>
<p>Do the long hours, the sensory deprivation caused by constantly staring at screens, and a missionary zeal for technology instead induce a kind of collective faith in the object of a “working app”? And what responsibility do hackathons have for the translation of technical outcomes to the kinds of social change they look to produce? </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113159/original/image-20160229-26687-1i9fnga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113159/original/image-20160229-26687-1i9fnga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113159/original/image-20160229-26687-1i9fnga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113159/original/image-20160229-26687-1i9fnga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113159/original/image-20160229-26687-1i9fnga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113159/original/image-20160229-26687-1i9fnga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113159/original/image-20160229-26687-1i9fnga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113159/original/image-20160229-26687-1i9fnga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Hard at work during the Random Hacks of Kindness held in Parramatta in 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Playing with fire</h2>
<p>Our own response in the aftermath of the event was one of mild and exhausted euphoria, accompanied by a sense that each of the change-maker teams had developed a tangible product that would be helpful to the groups they were intended for. </p>
<p>Under pressure of the tight timelines, each of the teams had, in their own way, “gelled” over the course of the two days. This was all the more remarkable since we had relatively few experienced hackathoners in our group. </p>
<p>In a research environment, where time for consultation with project stakeholders can be difficult to find, the results seemed especially surprising. The hackathon promotes the idea of more regular, if still sporadic, bursts of high-intensity collaboration across diverse disciplinary and institutional boundaries. It’s neither work nor hobby “<a href="https://www.academia.edu/6258154/Journal_of_Peer_Production_The_Ethic_of_the_Code_An_Ethnography_of_a_Humanitarian_Hacking_Community">but something of both</a>”. </p>
<p>On the other hand, in the days following the event, we also registered a certain degree of scepticism about the “<a href="http://twentyfive.fibreculturejournal.org/fcj-186-hack-for-good-speculative-labour-app-development-and-the-burden-of-austerity/">narrowing attention to issues that can be solved in a compressed timeframe</a>”. </p>
<p>In the cold light of day – during the working week that followed – we experienced a distinct anti-climax, as though the beneficial outcomes stemmed from a form of participant collusion during the event itself. It became increasingly difficult to convince others who had not attended the event about the technical and social miracles we had produced in such a short time and under duress. </p>
<p>Each project would also need to address the question of how it would advance the weekend’s work into a product: what would be the fate of these bursts of innovation and collaboration, produced under the effects of self-imposed confinement?</p>
<h2>After the fever</h2>
<p>Both euphoria and anticlimax are perhaps understandable responses to the “bootcamp” atmosphere. In this respect, hackathons share much in common with the “<a href="https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/eur/intensive-culture/book231038">intensive culture</a>” infusing research, media, markets and work. </p>
<p>This includes writing retreats, grant preparations, political campaigns, fitness and weight-loss programs, public talk competitions, agile work practices and “sprints” in the software industry. </p>
<p>As laboratories for translating ideas into implementation, hackathons hold exciting potential. To become enduring, they will need to prepare organisers, change makers and participants for the emotional rollercoasters that they invariably produce. </p>
<p>As the word “hack” itself suggests, they can involve the transgressive sense of breaking boundaries and making new links. Their role in building innovative cultures requires, though, more than feverish excitement and technological expertise. </p>
<p>Other researchers have begun to study their effects in more detail, charting some of their <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ropr.12074/abstract">challenges</a> and <a href="http://sth.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/04/07/0162243915578486.abstract">benefits</a>. Hackathons have become an “<a href="http://peerproduction.net/issues/issue-2/peer-reviewed-papers/diybio-in-asia/">invaluable unique form of life worthy of careful investigation</a>”. </p>
<p>In the current enthusiasm for building cultures of innovation, this investigation is now vital to ensure the broader “ideas boom” doesn’t prematurely go bust.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54245/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Teresa Swist is a member of the national steering committee of Random Hacks of Kindness. Her role as Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute for Culture and Society is funded by the Young and Well Cooperative Research Centre.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Liam Magee is affiliated with Random Hacks of Kindness. He has previously received funding from the ARC, and through the ARC, a number of government and private organisations.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachel Hendery works for Western Sydney University and is on the organising committee of the Random Hacks of Kindness Parramatta node. The Random Hacks of Kindness Parramatta Hackathon was supported by funding from Western Sydney University in 2015 and 2016.</span></em></p>Hackathons are all the rage, but if the participants follow through on the results, they can be a powerful instrument for generating innovation.Teresa Swist, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Western Sydney UniversityLiam Magee, Senior Research Fellow, Digital Media, Western Sydney UniversityRachel Hendery, Senior Lecturer in Digital Humanities, Western Sydney UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.