VentureBeat Botathon
Details
So, tomorrow morning! :)
The last pre-event updates:
• Please bring your own laptops, notebooks, gadgets (for me this was obvious but there is no such a thing)
• I left the RSVP open for a bit longer as Revolver Creative and their ISP will be providing us with one universal wifi password for the weekend. (Hopefully, the net will be good, what I tested mid-week it was ~50/~50Mbps - but I like plan B's, so would be good if everyone had their prepaid/postpaid mobile data plans handy, just in case ;)
• I'll be there from 8:30-ish, please come early rather than late. But no pressure in either case, just you might need to be more initiative (like finding your own way around the Revolver space, if you come later...). Btw, besides the street food options, there is a kitchen upstairs, so you can also bring your own brunches, lunches, etc...
• The judges stand on the 3 listed below - but I was again today in touch with a gov rep and a professor. Would love to have people from gov & edu sector joining, even if it was in the last minute.
• VentureBeat USA have just informed me (with their privilege of being still due to wake up to Fri, 8th:
"We are adding an online component to the Botathon for people who aren't in any of our cities. Looking at the numbers of cities + online, we are now at almost 250 participants. "
So, if you have any friends/colleagues/contacts from outside of Melbourne who'd like to help you with your project - please feel free to approach them and change their plans for the weekend ;)
With/without all that competition and me questioning if some US participating will be coming with bots they haven't "released" yet but have been working on for weeks and months - well, whatever, I'd personally just focus on the local problems /market / Australian innovation first - and lets see what happens then... :)
• Late-comers or people who can only make part-weekend, could still be considered - if find a team who'd be willing to take them onboard :)
• Brought the telepresence bot Double v1 (from the other side of Melbourne -teleportation, at least of physical stuff, needs to become a norm soon). It's going to sleep in the box as I'm going to sleep soon too. If anyone likes unboxing and setting up new stuff (as I think, I grew up from this), please come see me tomorrow (but let's not break this thing, please, as I put my personal $600 deposit for it).
• Also, anyone with a good DSLR/video-cam and a tripod (or a cameraman friend)? Especially for Sun pitches/demos, judging and announcements. But if not, we all have smartphones and that could be enough too...
• My sincere thanks to everyone who has reached out to me with offers of help, there will never be enough thanks to Ren from BlueChilli but also to Hannah and Conrad from Revolver Creative and also Andrew, PK, Ben (Flink Labs), Ralph (OneStopMedia). For me personally this means/shows a lot what like-minded people/community are capable of even on a nano-scale -vs- large business and governments
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/not-so-caring-the-lie-of-the-sharing-economy-20160408-go1lx7.html
Anyway, have a good night all and see you in the morning in Prahran... :)
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Less than 2 days in prior updates:
• Participation RSVP deadline = lunchtime (12:00pm) of Fri, 8 July
Anyone interested in participating after this registration deadline will only be considered on a case by case basis. We have some time zone advantages over the USA, but on Friday afternoon, we'll need to issues everyone accesses for Revolver Creative wifi - and you will get your details upon arrival on Sat am.
• TEAM and projects pre-formation is now open at: http://botathon.sparkboard.com/
If anyone has a pre-formed team, or doesn’t want to disclose their idea publicly, or will want the new team members to sign an NDA - please just create a general project, for example: “Nutrition area” and who/what you are looking for - if anything/anyone at all.
There will be a possibility to form/join teams on Saturday morning too.
The dream team?:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andyellwood/2012/08/22/the-dream-team-hipster-hacker-and-hustler/#6942414968a8
Just an idea or a potential startup business?:
https://youtu.be/wwShFsSFb-Y?list=PLTZNT3Bcgb3-KaBCUY-V0yfMj54UsrELb
• Judges who are coming for the final project selection on Sunday evening (5pm - 7pm) for prototype demos and pitches of the ideas/business model, the following have confirmed:
Shelli K. Trung (https://au.linkedin.com/in/shellitrung) (listed top 100 angel investors, Startup advisor)
Richard Celm (https://au.linkedin.com/in/richardcelm) (Small Business & Startup Advisor)
Steven Cooper (https://developersteve.com/press-kit/) (Xero Senior Dev Evangelist, Hackathon MC/Mentor/Judge)
(1-2 additional might join in the last minute)
• Food, drinks, pets, parking, fun...
The budget at the moment doesn't allow for any brain food/drinks allowances here but Chapel St and Prahran have open arms for you! ;) (However, we'll do our best for some drinks and food for the judgment time of Sun evening 5pm - 7pm).
Revolver Creative is a pet-friendly coworking space but please indicate, by sending Peter Marko a message, if you wish to bring your pet (so he/she doesn't fight with 'mine' Jack or someone's else pet for example ;)
Parking shouldn't be a problem in the area, around Prahran Markets (free-but-short or long-but-paid). Also please consider the train and/or bicycle (there are bicycle racks inside of RevolverCreative, see the pics).
We'll most likely have a telepresence bot, the Double (v1), to have some fun with, allow some remote participation and preparation for the winning team telepresence in the USA. But only for the weekend, it will need to return to its base on Monday morning.
Don't forget to join us on Slack, already lots of ideas and fun starting there, so if you haven't, you are missing out!? :-o
https://chatbotsau.azurewebsites.net/
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Be part of the world's first international hackathon
dedicated to messaging bots & Artificial Intelligence.
Non-coders, people from other backgrounds like psychology, communication, human behaviour, UX, business, etc., are welcomed too!
RSVP if you want to participate.
For more information, to post and vote on project ideas, please go to http://botathon.club/ < Please share the link on your social media! :)
Learning resources for developers (coders & non-coders):
https://github.com/pemoke/botathon
If you have any questions, join and ask us on Slack:
https://chatbotsau.azurewebsites.net/
There will be follow-up registration, and project leads selection and pre-formation of the teams mid-week.
Then, looking forward to seeing you on Saturday in Revolver Creative!
Peter Marko
(Organiser of Botathon 2016 Melbourne)
NB: (Any feedback/suggestions/errors on http://botathon.club/ ? Then please do not hesitate to send me a message ;)