Oxford Geek Night – 27 January

Oxford Geek Nights is coming to the Jericho Tavern, Wednesday 27 January at 7:30pm.

  • Dr. Sue Black OBE will be talking about her new book Saving Bletchley Park and signing books afterwards.
  • James Williams will be giving his talk on Distraction by Design – “What if technology could distract us less, and respect our time & attention more? What would that world look like – and how could it be built?”

The 5-minute microslot talks are so-far filled by:

  • Martin Poulter – Wikipedia and it’s battles with correct information
  • Dario Salvi – Internet of things

There will be free drinks from sponsors HaybrookIT and if you’ve never been before Oxford Geek Nights are a great way to mingle with industry professionals in the area.

 

Google Hash Code 2016 – team based programming competition

Could you come up with a way to optimise Internet coverage for Project Loon balloons, or route Google Street View cars through Paris?

Organised by Google, Hash Code  gives you an opportunity to step into the shoes of a Google engineer and tackle these types of challenges in a team-based programming competition for students and professionals. You pick your team and programming language, Google pick a real-life engineering problem to solve.

The competition is divided into two stages:

  • an Online Qualification Round on 11th February at 18:30 CET
    For this round, your team can participate from wherever you’d like, including one of our Hash Code hubs. Hubs allow for teams in the same location (e.g. city or university) to compete side-by-side in a more fun and exciting environment. The Oxford Hackspace is a hub.
  • a Final Round on 19th March
    Top scoring teams from the Online Qualification Round will be invited to Google Paris to compete in the Final Round of the competition.

For more information and to sign up  g.co/hashcode!

Training Workshop—How to Hackathon

A hacking training session will  be running at the Centre for Digital Scholarship, Weston Library tomorrow, Thursday 3rd December 13:30-17:00.  The event is free and is open to all members of the University of Oxford.

The workshop will explore the ins and outs of running a hackathon with digital data or content.  In the second part of the session, participants will engage in a mini-hackathon using  Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership data, followed by a discussion of the experience.

For more information about the event and to register your place (essential):

http://blogs.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/digital/2015/10/21/training-workshop-how-to-hackathon/

The workshop is led by:

Iain Emsley – a research associate at the Oxford e-Research Centre, working with the Software Sustainability Institute and the Square Kilometre Array. Currently reading for a Masters in Software Engineering at the University of Oxford, he has organized and attended hack sessions. His research interests include sonification.

Liz McCarthy – Web & Digital Media Manager at the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford. Her research interests include social media in the cultural sector, digital literacy, digital humanities, 17th-century bookbindings, and library history.