#hackidemia

[gojohnetta]

TEDxYouth@Austin + Hackidemia: The Musical Room — HacKIDemia https://ift.tt/2YeEi1q

[krisallenfields]

Hackers & Founders

The job hunt is on.  Today I emailed more companies and attended a Hackers and Founders meetup in Oakland.  It was a good experience.  There were a lot of people there looking for developers.  Unfortunately, most were looking for technical cofounders as opposed to new employees.  While being part of an early stage startup is actually very appealing to me, I'm not in a position right now where I can work for equity only, which is all that most of the startups at tonight's meetup had to offer.  Still, there were a couple of promising leads and it only takes one.  I acquired a handful of business cards and will be going through them tomorrow.  

Of all the companies present, I think the most interesting was probably a company called Hackidemia.  I don't think they're hiring right now though, which is too bad, because it's exactly the sort of company I'd want to work for.  From their site, "Hackidemia is a mobile invention lab that enables future changemakers to access and create a hands-on STEAM education that will enable them to solve specific challenges by developing and testing creative solutions and physical artifacts."  Basically they hold workshops around the world where kids can play with new technologies and use those technologies to create projects of their own.  It's an ed tech company with high ambitions to change the model of learning adopted at schools worldwide.  And from listening to Libby, the "story wizard" of the company, it sounds likes they have some great ideas for how to turn that vision into the reality.

That's the sort of company I could be proud to work at - one where I know what I'm doing is making a tangible difference in the lives of those around me - where my contributions are helping forge a better future for everyone.   

[bobirakova]

Doesn't hacking come natural to kids?

Hacking is something not everybody enjoys. You've got to be a special kind of grown up if you enjoy it - most of the time the others - friends and family think you're playing and not actually doing anything meaningful. However every hacker would tell you this is an absolute nonsense and even that playing is not definitely a bad thing.

When you work with kids you see how excited they feel when they know that they are going to 'hack' with something. One of the most powerful ideas in the TEDxBrussels this year is that if our kids are going to be true digital natives, we should be teaching them technology so they can be creators, not just consumers. And hacking is the first step to creating something new. Have a look at Ryan Creighton and his adorable daughter talking about the video game they created together at at another TEDx event in Toronto a few weeks ago:

Now you can see why we had a great time organizing a great Hackidemia event in Sofia, Bulgaria a few day ago. I started working on the project from the perspective of doing electronics workshops with the kids and now I see that anything involving programming, robotics, LEDs, electronic circuits fires kids up so much to learn more and play with them at home.

This time we did our Hackidemia event in SOHO - the Sofia holistic coworking space, which is a great 3 story house with a very artistic touch right in the center of the Sofia. Honestly we were a little bit worried of all the pictures and sculptures all over the house having in mind that we expected around 50 kids. The truth is that more than 60kids showed up, we had 10 different workshops and everything went great. One thing that we did different was that we thought that we really want each kid to go through as many workshops as possible(as we loved them all). This is where Gamecraft helped us let the kids play they way through all the workshops. Here come the Badges:

From the top row, left to right - you see the badges for:

Cardboard Creativity and Recycling - we had tons of cardboard and the goal was to create different game(arcades) from it - with no constraints. Any game is great using any kind of recycling material.

Crafts - constructing objects from wood and painting them - the kids created some amazing boards in different shapes, reindeers and others.

Driving a car with lemons - the task was to learn the very basics of electronics and what we need to light an LED. How the batteries work and why and how we can use a lemon to light an LED. Through plenty experiments we realized that we can’t really power up a motor with lemons.

Electronics - After going through the basics in the previous workshop the kids were now ready to create circuits including more elements - buttons, resistors, 7-segment displays and others. They loved playing and exploring on their own while showing to other kids what’s the right way to connect elements to turn on a simple LED.

3D Origami - The very creative 3D Origami workshop was about imagination and following the steps to create an object out of colored paper pieces.

Lego Robots - was using the Mindstorms Robotics kits to let kids explore and learn how easy it is to program a robot.

Space and Space Exploration ideas - was about what do we need to do to send a small payload to Space and also - why should we want to send it there? What are the kids ideas of Space Exploration.

3D Printer and how it works? - We were very happy to have a full functioning Rep-Rap 3D printer that was 3D printing a shark. The kids were very excited and curious about what could they 3D print and kept asking amazing questions.

Go - the ancient Chinese game was great even for 4 years old

How to create a musical Instrument - was all about what do you need to make a Guitar and the basics into how to play a Piano and a Guitar.

Kids loved the badges idea! It was amazing how adding this small element of getting a badge sticker when you complete the workshop made the whole event so dynamical. All the kids got the idea very quickly and were eager to gather all of them and learn about everything.

Have a look at the pictures here.

Now you should be convinced that today is about being active and creating. As Joris Peels says at the TEDxKids Brussels event - "Making things is the most fantastic thing in the world to say: I made this". When you think about don't you believe Gabe Zichermann, when he asks: "Is it that our children have ADD or is our world is too freaking slow for children to appreciate?"

Looking forward to the next Hackidemia! The electronics wizard, Boby :) and the Gamification wizard, Deny :)

[knowtex]

Hackidemia : apprendre en bidouillant

Stefania Druga en est à son 3e Hackidémia. Après le Cambodge, la France et la Roumanie, elle s'est décidée à parcourir le monde avec quelques camarades pour populariser ce nouveau format d'apprentissage.

En quelques mots : Hackidemia est un nouveau modèle d'apprentissage centré sur la pratique et l'expérience au sein d'une communauté et dans l'inter-génération. Stéfania a remarqué que pour les enfants, il est vraiment important d'avoir une expérience pratique ("concrète") et un succès rapide. Elle est persuadée qu'en impliquant les enfants sur de VRAIS défis et en travaillant par projet, ils peuvent apporter un autre regard...

La vidéo du dernier Hackidémia en Roumanie. Après le prochain Hackidemia français qui se déroule ce samedi 13 à l'occasion de l'Open World Forum, Stéfania partira monter un premier laboratoire permanent au Brésil.

[nicolasloubet]

Stefania believes in disrupting the education sector. She is a former Singularity fellow and active with HacKIDemia where she introduces kids to the culture of hacking.

[nouveauxetudiants-blog]

HacKidemia

Le 6 juin se déroulera �� l’internat d’excellence de Marly-le-roi, le HacKidemia. L’école n’apprend pas tout et la curiosité n’attend pas : des experts et passionnés de technologies nouvelles et de bidouilles mettront à disposition des enfants de 11 à 13 ans objets, matériaux divers et expériences. Aucune limite: c’est eux qui choisissent ce qu’ils font, avec quoi, pour une aventure expérimentale d’innovation in situ. L’objectif est simple: comprendre que l’on peut faire soi-même et que la curiosité s’assouvit par le faire.

Si vous voulez animer un atelier avec les enfants ou juste leur faire découvrir vos robots, drones, imprimante 3d n'hésitez pas à vous inscrire dans ce formulaire.

Quand ? le 6 juin à 14.00

Où ? Internat d’Excellence de Marly-le-Roi, 11 rue Paul Leplat, 78160 Marly-le-Roi

Details organisation

2 salles (C106 et C107) ont été réservées le mercredi 6 après-midi.

15 élèves de 4ème et 3ème assisteront aux ateliers

Bon hackday!

[spokesamerica]

Learning comes through freedom of exploration - lessons from Stefania Druga of Hackidemia

“Last weekend, in Berlin, the room was a big mess after our kids hackathon. All kinds of things had exploded! To me, this was evidence that our workshop was a success - children learn by breaking things.”

Stefania Druga, founder of Hackidemia, is on a quest to foster curiosity, empathy and play among kids. Hackidemia’s workshops and hackathons are based on several fundamental beliefs: involving parents in workshops stretches the duration of learning; children learn most when they have freedom to explore their curiosity; hands-on learning is most needed in places where “making” is an unknown term.

  From quick-win to structural learning

When Hackidemia starts an event in a new country, the organizing team starts by giving an elaborate training to a team of volunteers. The goal of this training and supplied documentation is that volunteers can organize follow-up classes even when the Hackidemia team has departed.  Organizing a single hands-on learning class does not lead to the structural learning - which we want. 

“Dad, look at my helicopter!”

When children leave a hands-on building place, home is the place they are likely to go. When you involve parents in hacking, mother and daughter are better equipped to remember the small robotic car running into the wall, or the earth all over the floor after sowing the tomato-plant-seeds. The learning experience extends beyond the workshop. 

By involving parents in workshops, you can trigger ideas for parents to foster better learning for their children. When you show a father how an arduino works, he is more likely to recognize an arduino the next time he is looking for a present to buy for his son, and more clearly sees the value of this toy. 

  Freedom nurtures true learning

Hackidemia does not impose a schedule during hackathons. Kids are free to choose soldering or painting. There is no fixed time per activity. When a girl’s curiosity is drawn by another activity than the one in which she’s involved, she is free to explore that class. 

For mentors (or teachers) this means that you need to juggle between introducing new kids to the basics of your class and providing help to kids who are more advanced. This is a very conscious choice for Stefania: “I prefer to make it simple for the children and difficult for the mentors, than making it simple for mentors but difficult for children.”

When children are free to roam between classes, an open space is important, “sometimes more important than the quality of the mentors”. When you want children to follow their curiosity, kids need to see what others are doing. The best way to understand the concept of “building a robot” is by seeing someone else do it (and then engaging in the activity) - not by listening to a 20-year old explain the class content. 

  Good conversations lead to questions

My brief conversation with Stefania raised several important ideas. If we aim to find students through word-of-mouth, should we not set up camp in cities for a few days, in stead of one afternoon? Who do we need to involve for children to be inclined to continue their projects after we leave when parents are not present? How can we build local teams of volunteers? Can we let go of our fixed-class approach and in stead host our classes in an open space?   

[itstartswithlight]

Wearables Workshop, OR The Most Delayed Blog Entry About an Event Ever

I can’t believe it’s been almost a week (six days to be exact!) since I attended the Wearables Workshop sponsored by Women Who Code NYC. I pondered the possiblity of NOT blogging about it, but then again, I promised myself (and the two people who read this blog) that I WOULD blog about it. A promise is a promise, even to myself. 

I arrived at the event super-nervous. I had never been to a Women Who Code event (partially because, the RSVPs always fill so fast) so I wasn’t sure what to expect. Would people be nice? I had complete and utter impostor syndrome. I was just learning to code, not really a full-fledged developer like most of the other women in the room. Could they accept me for who I was?

Thankfully, all of my fears were unfounded (aren’t most fears unfounded though?!) All the women I met were friendly and professional. I couldn’t have felt more comfortable. It also helped that many of us were new to the hardware world, so we were all equally flustered and nervous--all in the same boat.

As for what we did in the workshop itself, I think it only solidified the fact that I want to learn MORE. One group worked with the Makey Makey, turning various items into music (such as glasses of water into a piano) or using the Makey Makey to turn pieces of aluminum foil into a game controller for the video game Dance, Dance Revolution. The group I worked with used construction paper and conductive tape along with the arduino and Processing (the software) to turn the conductive tape grid into a synth. You know, child’s play. (NOT!) It was probably one of the most confounding things I had ever worked with (we had a few code issues, and I got flashbacks of working on my own code at 2AM and wondering WHY IT ISN’T WORKING). In any case, it was super-reassuring to know that even industry professionals get bugs too. 

All in all, it was a great workshop. I had a ton of fun and met some really smart, interesting women in tech. I highly recommend it, and would go to another workshop in a heartbeat!

[intelligenthq]

HacKIDemia – Innovation and Social Change Through Play

[bobirakova]

TEDx 2013 Rock on for the whole year!

This year TEDxBG that happened in Sofia just a few days ago was just mind-blowing! So much energy, so many things to learn and to share. So many new amazing people - inventors, entrepreneurs, friends, teachers, makers! It was "the fuel that is going to wake us up in the beginning of 2013 and keep us alive long after its gone" quoted from Teddy Zareva, one of the awesome organizers!

Like you see from the picture - more than 1000 people showed up excited about the event. But why TEDx was such a unique experience for me:

I met amazing people that share my believes of where the future is going

Without any doubts for me one of the most inspiring stories was the one by Vladi Shunturov - one of the Lucid Design Group co-founders who shared his vision about a future of responsibility. A future where the buildings around us would change dramatically to be energy efficient and we would be aware and lower down their environmental footprint. I especially loved his point that there are many emerging consumer devices that would help this process and make it very simple and straightforward for any of us to lower down the energy consumption!

Had the chance to tell my story of Singularity University and the Global Impact Competition happening so soon!

The challenge

How can we improve the standard of living health, education, and security of 1 million people in the next 3 years through the use of any kind of exponentially improving technology?

If you have an answer, idea or project you would like to implement to solve the challenge, APPLY to the Competition and win a Full Scholarship for SU GSP13!

We did a great Hackidemia event for the older kids, presenting the idea and just the next day for the real kids! Huge thanks to the never sleeping Hackdiemia Team!!!

My Hackidmeia TEDx workshop was about electronics and using conductive ink to sketch with electronics! Have a look at some of the girls that got excited about electronics while exploring different conductive materials that can be used in creating circuits while painting on a sheet of paper!

All of them were amazing! 

[peschmitt]

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A post shared by Pierre-Edouard Schmitt (@peschmitt)

Préparation de l'atelier #HacKidemia de mercredi @iesamultimedia Les grands enfants en atelier :) Mercredi ça va juste être de la folie!!! #IESAkids (à IESA multimédia, la 1ère école multimédia à Paris)

[associationxamxam]

Afrimakers, un projet d'initiation des jeunes aux nouvelles démarches scientifiques

Images: makerfaire Africa, Lagos, atelier Hackidemia.

« Les mouvements d'ouverture qui ont caractérisé le web (open source, open innovation, open data, open science, open education) ne concernent plus seulement une avant-garde de programmeurs idéalistes. Ils ont donné naissance, notamment sur les campus américains, à une nouvelle culture de la transmission, de l'apprentissage et de l'innovation. Ils bouleversent aujourd'hui jusqu'aux organisations les plus rigoureuses, y compris la recherche scientifique. De nombreuses activités il y a peu très élitistes, doivent désormais apprendre à s'adresser au plus grand nombre et à puiser dans la force créatrice de ce grand nombre. » François Taddei

Hackidemia est un principe de « laboratoire mobile » conçu par Stefania Druga, qui a pour objectif de familiariser les jeunes enfants et les adolescents aux sciences et aux technologies numériques par l’appropriation directe et le jeu. Pour Stefania Druga, qui a été formée à l’ingénierie pédagogique au Centre de Recherches Interdisciplinaires de l’Université de Paris Descartes dirigé par François Taddei, il est important que les enfants mettent « la main à la pâte »,  expérimentent, créent des robots et des prototypes pour découvrir et comprendre comment ça marche. C’est le passage idéal pour pouvoir accéder par la suite à des technologies plus complexes. Savoirs-faire partagés, créativité, mutualisation, propagation virale sont les bases de son organisation. 

J’ai pu voir Stéfania à l’œuvre à Lagos l’année dernière pendant la Makerfaire Africa lors d’ateliers remarquablement bien menés. Elle revient -au sein d'un groupe élargi- avec le projet Afrimakers qui vise à ouvrir des hubs de formation dans sept villes en Afrique l’année prochaine et lance une campagne de crowdfunding. A suivre donc...

[dubacademy]

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A post shared by Dub Academy 🎧🎤🎹🎵 (@dubacademy)

This morning we stopped by Travis Heights Elementary for #Hackidemia !! Had lots of fun demoing Old school and new school technology to all the kiddos! #traktor #machine #serato Instructors: @djladda @sharks512 @mixmasterpayton Video: @dabrownsound #dubacademy (at Travis Heights Elementary School)

[intelligenthq]

4 Stories of Social Businesses That Are Revolutionising The World

[sirusiru-blog]

we decided to inspire kids to imagine a better tomorrow and give them the tools to build it.

http://www.hackidemia.com/our-story/

[knowableorg]

Coming up: Hack The City Berlin!

Berlin is in for a treat: this coming monday will be all about drones, 3d printers, laser cutting, hacking and tinkering - and kids!

That's right. We are thrilled to invite you to the first Hack The City event in Berlin, specifically tailored and made for Kids and children. On April 1st the great folks from HacKidemia are holding a series or workshops and sessions for kids to get a quite new and exciting point of view on the technology that surrounds us, hands-on that is. There will be sessions on laser cutting you own furniture, programming your own video games, tinkering with music making (yep, Makey Makey is here) - so basically a huge experimental lab for kids.

We will kick off at the betahaus at 10.30 am and move over to the all new Berlin FabLab at 2.30pm.

It's going to be a blast - so make sure to register over here!

So, who is doing this again?

Hackidemia a wonderful community of people all over the world that explore new ways of education and teaching with and for children. And it is pretty much learning-by-doing itself: Over the past 6 months they had 45 workshops with 2000+ children in places like Zagreb, Toulouse, Timisoara, Sao Paolo - now adding Berlin to the growing list. Their Co-Founder Stefania Druga just recently moved over here and we had the chance to learn a bit about what they are doing and right away starting thinking about how we could team up. We love the idea - it perfectly aligns with what we have in mind with knowable: exploring the potential that new technologies hold for everyone.

To make this event lasting even after it actually took place, we will document whatever is going down on monday and share right over here at knowable - the idea behind this is that everyone else can learn a bit about the workshops, ideas, and techniques - and keep tweaking and tinkering around with it afterwards. Plus, for us this is a great way to kick off a series of workshops that we will hold in the coming weeks and months.

We are very looking forward to monday! Probably all your family, brothers, cousins, nephews are in Berlin anyway - so why not bring them along? See you on monday, then! :)