| 18 Nov 2023 | 9:30 - 18:30 | Room SG1, Alison Richard Building, 7 West Road, Cambridge | |
- Description
- Programme
- Call for participants
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.
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
If you have specific accessibility needs for this event please get in touch. We will do our best to accommodate any requests.
Supported by:
Programme
| 9:30 - 10:00 | Registration and networking |
| 10:00 - 10:20 | Opening remarks and introduction |
| 10:30 - 12:45 | Hackathon time |
| 12:45 - 13:30 | Lunch from Aromi |
| 13:30 - 16:30 | Keep hacking |
| 16:30 - 17:30 | Project presentations |
| 17:30 - 18:10 | Judges’ deliberation |
| 18:10 - 18:30 | Award ceremony and closing remarks |
Call for participants
The hackathon is open to both undergraduate and postgraduate students at Cambridge, from various disciplines and aims to create a collaborative environment where different skills and perspectives can come together to produce meaningful solutions.
We are seeking diverse participants, from those with technical skills interested in prototyping a tech-based solution to policy enthusiasts keen on drafting guidelines, to anyone intrigued by specific facets of misinformation.
Misinformation and its intersections with society are truly interdisciplinary, so we encourage applications from all areas and levels of study.
You can take part either in a team of 4-6 or sign up individually to be matched with others.
We will be in touch after the deadline with your final team. Please note that we may add some people to an existing team if there is space. We will do our best to make sure each team has a diverse range of skills and past experience.
Please fill out the application form by 5 November 2023.
If you have any questions please contact the convenors at ih345@cam.ac.uk and nv321@cam.ac.uk.
