[UA-discuss] Hackathon @ ICANN55

[Brent London]

I agree with Jordyn.

On the topic of hackathons, it's not so clear to me:

   1. that ICANN has the type of audience that would want to participate in
   a hackathon, and

   2. what problem we're trying to solve with a hackathon. We can't just
   set up tables, ask developers to show up, say "go", and expect something
   productive to come from it. We need objectives that (a) fit a hackathon's
   time constraints, and (b) fit the culture of hackathons: people need to be
   solving problems that they feel like working on.

A failed hackathon is bad for our cause: wasted UASG resources, wasted
non-UASG resources, diminished credibility. I think we should pause and
make sure we've got a good answer to Miguel's question: what would be the
expected outcome of this hackathon?

Brent

On Fri, Nov 13, 2015 at 7:48 AM, Miguel Ignacio Estrada <miestrada at gmail.com
> wrote:

> Sorry for bringing it back to basics, maybe I lost track but what would be
> the expected outcome of this Hackaton?
>
> On Thu, Nov 12, 2015 at 9:00 PM, Jordyn Buchanan via UA-discuss <
> ua-discuss at icann.org> wrote:
>
>> Hey all:
>>
>> I have two thoughts on this:
>>
>> 1) I like to periodically go back to thinking about the UASG as a
>> coordinating body.  Given that general statement of principle/purpose, it
>> seems like the goal here should be to see if we can find someone who knows
>> how to do hackathons and have them host it with some level of support and
>> awareness-raising from the UASG.  Maybe that could be a local university or
>> tech company.  If we find ourselves in the position that we're putting on a
>> hackathon as opposed to helping to support one, I'd suggest that we're
>> losing sight of the coordination role and it's going to be hard to scale up
>> UA efforts if we expect the UASG to have to be doing most of the heavy
>> lifting.
>>
>> 2) Before we really answer the question of whether a hackathon in
>> Marrakech makes sense (as a way for us to invest our time and money),
>> versus a hackathon somewhere else, I think a good question to think about
>> is what sorts of projects we expect the hackers to be hacking away at.
>> While it's true that there's some engineers at ICANN meetings, they tend to
>> be focused on systems/network infrastructure.  So if our goal, for example,
>> to create some cool javascript that allowed for proper right-to-left domain
>> handling and conversion to punycode, I'd guess we wouldn't have a lot of
>> the right people at the meeting to be strong contributors to this effort.
>> On the other hand, folks may be able to articulate some class of problem
>> that we do want to hack away at and where we think we'll have the right
>> folks on site.  If so, that's great, but we should clearly articulate what
>> we're after and, to Mike's point, consider bringing in some people who are
>> going to be really strong coders and idea generators to make sure we have a
>> nucleus of hackers to build around.
>>
>> Pulling together, what I'd hate to see is a hackathon-for-the-sake-of-a-hackathon
>> that ends up not being successful and discourages future UA technical
>> efforts along these same lines.  I really want to see these sorts of
>> hackathons take place, but I want to make sure we're getting the most bang
>> for buck out of the effort this group will invest into making it happen.
>>
>> Jordyn
>>
>> On Thu, Nov 12, 2015 at 12:52 AM, Mike Silber <mike.silber at icann.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Rubens and Don +1
>>>
>>> The ccNSO / ccTLD community have a tech day. Try not to overlap and
>>> engage with the organizers and coordinate as far as possible. Don't expect
>>> too much though.
>>>
>>> Regional IDN ccTLDs are a great place to start.
>>>
>>> Avoid the corporate communications machine from getting hold of this and
>>> turning it into something it is not. Under promise (or don't promise at
>>> all) and over deliver.
>>>
>>> While no one should be excluded, ensure invitations and communications
>>> make it clear that this is a technical engagement and policy discussions
>>> happen elsewhere.
>>>
>>> Consider travel funding specifically for this. To me the criteria would
>>> be technical skill and regional location!
>>>
>>> Just my 2c (and at current exchange rates that is about $0,0018) so take
>>> it for what it is worth.
>>>
>>> Mike
>>>
>>> > On 12 Nov 2015, at 02:18, Rubens Kuhl <rubens at registro.br> wrote:
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >> On Nov 11, 2015, at 9:20 PM, Don Hollander <don.hollander at icann.org>
>>> wrote:
>>> >>
>>> >> Here’s my take on the Hackathon idea @ ICANN55:
>>> >>
>>> >> 1) ICANN is a technology conference and there would be few technology
>>> conferences of its size held in the region.
>>> >> 2) I note that ICANN is generally around policies, but there are
>>> still a lot of geeks there
>>> >
>>> > ccTLD activities at ICANN are usually of a more technical tone, and
>>> ccTLDs are the most used domains in the AF region, not gTLDs. Involving the
>>> local IDN ccTLDs might be key to attract more geeks.
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > Rubens
>>> >
>>> >
>>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Nacho Estrada | @acmuzic <http://twitter.com/acmuzic>
>
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