The Cambridge misinformation hackathon

Description

Convenors

• Inigo Howe (Fourth-year PhD student in the Engineering Department and co-president of Cambridge University Students Against Pseudoscience)

• Naomi van den Berg  (Third-year PhD student at the MRC Toxicology Unit and co-president of Cambridge University Students Against Pseudoscience)

Who are we?

Students Against Pseudoscience was founded by a group of students at the University of Cambridge during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. We value effective scientific communication and are dedicated to fighting back against the growing threats of pseudoscience, misinformation and anti-intellectualism with compassion.

Judges

We will have a panel of 3 expert judges to assess your work:

Ramit Debnath
University Assistant Professor Ramit Debnath, a fellow at Cambridge Zero and visiting associate at Caltech, leads research using computational social science to address climate action barriers. Recognised with awards such as the 2022 Google Cloud Climate Innovation Challenge, he focuses on developing people-centric climate pathways.

Hugo Leal
Dr Hugo Leal, a Research Associate at the Minderoo Centre, explores the interface of collective action and digital technologies, emphasising understanding and countering misinformation. He holds a PhD from the European University Institute and investigates networked social movements.

Stefanie Ullmann
Dr Stefanie Ullmann, focusing on AI and its societal impact, explores areas like online hate speech and machine translation bias while holding a PhD centred on the 2011 Arab Spring’s discourse. She also edits an anthology on Counterspeech.

Summary

We welcome you to ‘The Cambridge misinformation hackathon’, hosted by Students Against Pseudoscience and CRASSH.

This event is for undergraduate and postgraduate students from all disciplines to tackle the root causes of and devise potential actionable solutions for the ongoing misinformation crisis. In an era marked by growing polarisation and diminishing trust in scientific institutions, this hackathon aspires to cultivate critical and constructive discourses within the academic community.

The hackathon will emphasise how we, as an academic community, can bolster trust in research and scientific institutions and enhance overall information resilience. Your outcomes will comprise three major segments: identifying the problem, formulating broad solutions, and producing actionable outputs, which can range from policy proposals and software prototypes to educational materials.

Teams will submit some written work and present their projects in a 5-minute presentation to be evaluated by a panel of experts.

The hackathon aims to serve as a platform to discuss key themes like media literacy, institutional reputation, and the socioeconomic drivers of misinformation, offering an enriching experience for all involved. Don’t miss this opportunity to compete for a prize while also making a lasting impact in the battle against misinformation.

Educational materials will be provided prior to the event, making it accessible to all experience levels. 

The winning team will receive a prize. 

Application deadline: 5 November 2023 

---

Supported by:

If you have specific accessibility needs for this event please get in touch. We will do our best to accommodate any requests.