A Behind the Scenes Look at evoHaX 2016
The third edition of evoHaX will be taking place April 30th to May 1st. evoHaX is a hackathon series focused on developing accessible technologies, and this will be the most exciting evoHaX yet, with a new location, inspiring theme, and plenty of hardware! Like in previous years, teams from schools, local tech firms, and individuals are invited to participate. In addition, there will still be professional developers, students, therapists, and people with disabilities to collaborate with.
evoHaX 2016 is being organized in conjunction with Blackstone Launchpad at Philadelphia University. This partnership is allowing us to move from Benjamin's Desk, where the past two events have been held, to the Design, Engineering and Commerce (DEC) Center at Philadelphia University. This move will help us to increase the number of teams participating in evoHaX as well as provide the teams with more access to the latest hardware and fabrication technology. evoHaX participants will be able to utilize the 3D Printing, Woodworks, and Electronics labs at Philadelphia University.
The theme for this edition of evoHaX is "Technologies for the Future: Green, Sustainable, and Accessible." We want evoHaX to grow and target a broader community by bringing together accessibility and other topics that people are passionate about and working on. We want to show that accessibility and sustainability are not different things; they don't have to be separate from each other. Universal design is good design for everyone, and the best technologies are both accessible and sustainable.
There will also be more subject matter experts than ever before. There will be mentors from the community with expertise in disabilities, technology, and the medical field. There will definitely be people with disabilities working with the teams, and we also hope to represent a broader range of disabilities at this evoHaX. We will be doing this by providing as many accommodations as possible. These experts will guide the students and teams and help them figure out what technologies to use. Each team will have assigned mentors, and there will also be mentors floating around to answer questions.
evoHaX 2016 will also have more energy drinks to keep your energy up throughout the weekend! Final presentations are on Sunday afternoon, and we have two awesome prize packages. The 1st place team will win an Amazon Echo for each team member. The other prize is the Delegates prize for the team that wins the most votes from the audience. The Delegate's prize is a Cheerwing Syma X5SW FPV Explorers2!
All of this would not be possible without our amazing sponsors: AccessComputing, Linode, Deaf-Hearing Communication Centre, Comcast, Philadelphia Link, Neuro Drink, and Benjamin's Desk.
Created: 20 April, 2016
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