HV Tech Fest

Hackathon

2019 Hudson Valley Tech Festival

First Annual Hackathon

Themes:

Education leading to Employability

Professional Sustainability

Saturday, October 12, 2019

Location: Mount Saint Mary College

email us at: festival@openhubproject.com OR hvtechfest@gmail.com Follows us at: @HVTechFest

Are you a creative thinker? A problem-solver? Are you concerned about issues related to the creation of new jobs, retention of workers, and the quality of life in our region? Do you have an idea to solve a problem related to the economics in the Hudson Valley, and our education-to-workforce pipeline (isn't it leaking)? If so, then come join us for the First Annual Hackathon, which will be run as a key activity of our inaugural Hudson Valley Tech Festival.

A hackathon is an event to take problems or ideas and “hack” them. In this hackathon, we will focus on solving issues having an economic impact in the Hudson Valley. Participants will engage in rapid prototyping and then come up with an idea. Pitch your idea, frame up and validate your issue, and put together a team to apply design thinking to develop your idea. Finally, show off your solution in front of the judges - to compete for prizes!

THE PROBLEM: Education - Availability, Employability and Professional Sustainability

We will spend the day reviewing the design-thinking process and exploring issues related to the workforce pipeline and professional sustainability, and then pitch ideas with the potential to improve conditions and issues people face on a daily basis in the Hudson Valley.

Participants will:

join a project
work together to create realistic solutions to problems
brainstorm and highlight a specific problem related to the underlying issue

Your idea can be something simple, like making learning more engaging, or putting on an educational job fair at your school. Or it could be something complex, like creating a skill bank for a future-ready workforce.

This Hackathon is a 7-hour brainstorming and idea-development competition to address these issues:

declining student enrollment
disconnect between college programs and workforce skill requirements
high school and college grads are leaving the region
limited continuous education opportunities
and last but not the least: aren't you sick of seeing highly-skilled professionals commuting daily to NYC?

Multiple government initiatives have been launched to support new job creation, worker retention, and quality of life improvements here in the Hudson Valley... but who can do this better than you? Do you have an idea? Educators, students, designers, developers, social workers, business specialists, and anyone else interested in developing solutions is encouraged to join us!