CNT Public Conversation and Hackathon on October 4th
CNT is excited to announce the Reinventing Chicago conversation and Hackathon! The event is a one-day conversation between the public and three great thinkers on technology and sustainability followed by a weekend-long Hackathon in which developers will compete with each other to turn the ideas raised at the conversation into reality. The conversation is being hosted by Red Frog Events and the Hackathon is hosted by TechNexus Venture Collaborative on October 4 and October 5-7, respectively.
Reinventing Chicago: What’s Technology Got to Do with It? will seek to answer the question: how can the “placeless” internet address problems like housing, transportation, and energy usage and support sustainable development of real places? What sorts of apps and tools can be developed to facilitate a smarter use of land, buildings, and resources? These are the sorts of issues our three experts will be addressing during the conversation.
The three speakers we are lucky enough to bring to the conversation are:
- Scott Bernstein, co-founder and president of CNT, who will be discussing sustainable regional economy;
- Andres Duany, Duany Plater-Zybeck & Co., noted architect and co-founder of Congress of the New Urbanism, who will be discussing urban form; and
- John Tolva, Chief Technology Officer for the City of Chicago, who will be discussing technology.
They will take part in a conversation moderated by noted journalist Laura Washington that will be followed by facilitated small groups where guests will explore and further discuss some of the ideas raised by the speakers.
The following day the Hackathon will begin, with developers taking these ideas and turning them into real applications. Developers and coders will gather for a full weekend of collaboration and marathon-coding to create tools and applications to apply the benefits offered by technology to the problems addressed by sustainability. Developers will have access not only to these ideas but also to CNT’s considerable archives of research data. Their efforts will be assessed by a panel of judges and the best entries will win prizes. The Hackathon’s judges are:
- Jamie N. Jones, director of Social Entrepreneurship at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University;
- Guy Turner, early stage technology-enabled business investor;
- Daniel X. O’Neil, executive director of the Smart Chicago Collaborative; and
- Orlando Saez, Chief Operating Officer of CityScan.
As a “think and do tank,” the Reinventing Chicago conversation and Hackathon is a perfect example of our philosophy in action: facilitating thought and discussion with the conversation, and facilitating these ideas’ execution through the Hackathon.
We’ll be posting stories featuring Reinventing Chicago in the weeks leading up to the event, and keeping the conversation buzzing on Facebook and Twitter (#reinventchi), so check in frequently to keep up on the event’s news. For sponsorship and ticket information, visit the event’s page or contact Nicole Gotthelf.
