Refugee Hackathon

With the growing refugee crisis, more and more people are asking themselves, what can be done to help. In The Netherlands, we’ve come across some fantastic people who are working on some innovative initiatives that are helping to improve the situation of refugees in the country and bringing light to the humanity of the people who are part of the struggle.

During this meetup we want to gather the people behind some of these projects to showcase what is possible, what are the needs and what can we do to help? We hope this meetup will be the first in a series of meetups on this topic, where we can come together to build a better situation for what is currently a crisis.

Albertine Piels, co-founder of Hackastory (http://www.hackastory.com/), an organization that brings storytellers, developers and designers together during hackathons and workshops will discuss the work they do to inspire people create cool projects at the cross section of journalism and technology.

Martijn van tol, is a journalist producing online and offline interactive narratives in which images, sound, text and art mixed to create an immersive experience. Martijn will present one of his latest projects, Refugee Republic (http://www.volkskrant.nl/refugee-republic/).

Bregtje van der Haak, is a documentary filmmaker and journalist. Bregtje will present a documentary (http://tegenlicht.vpro.nl/afleveringen/2015-2016/gimme-shelter.html) she recently finished on refugee initiatives in The Netherlands.

After we get some inspiration, we'll give an opportunity for cases to be presented of projects that need our help. They'll be looking for developers, data visualizers, journalists, thinkers and more.

Case 1

SAFETYLAB

This project aims to set up a SafetyLab for undocumented women asylum seekers by exploring what ‘being safe’ means to them. The project is organized by ASKV/ SteunpuntVluchtelingen who will work with Russian artist Natalya Pershina, better known as Gluklya, and photographer Barnet Kansil.

Case 2

Refugee Interview Simulation

"For refugees the interviews with the IND are key moments in the procedure to get asylum. Butch and Sundance is working on a few interactive stories that mirror the dynamics of this interview. The refugee is telling the story, the IND employee is trying to find out if it's trustworthy. Based on real dossiers and a series of very short clips (recorded with an actor) we are working (and researching) on a concept of interaction design that best fits this purpose."

Case 3

Diaspora 6762

Diaspora 6762 is an artistic journalism project by Yobert Younan and Erik van Gameren, consisting of a digital reconstruction of a disintegrated community and a photo documentary of refugees in Iraq.

If you have a case that you would like to present, you'll be given an opportunity to pitch tomorrow night!

This meetup will be graciously hosted at Lab111.