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    News + Gaming Hackathon

    Date & Time:
    From April 22, 2011 to April 23, 2011

    Hacks/Hackers New York City is hosting a News+Gaming Hackathon on Apr. 22 and 23, at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, sponsored by Seattle-based BigDoor, which offers a gamification API.

    To participate, register on the Meetup.com page.

    The agenda:

    - Friday, Apr. 22, 6:30 p.m.: Social event with talks about gaming mechanics. Find hack day partners for Saturday and share ideas.

    - Saturday, Apr. 23: Daylong hackathon at CUNY in midtown starting at ~9 a.m.

    There will be fun prizes for winning hacks, thanks to BigDoor.

    Speakers include Ian Bogost of Georgia Tech, Heather Chaplin, and Roy Schmidt of BigDoor:

    Ian Bogost is an assistant professor at Georgia Tech and the co-founder of Persuasive Games, an award-winning independent video game studio that makes games about social and political issues. He is the author of “Newsgames: Journalism at Play” (MIT Press 2010, co-authored with Simon Ferrari and Bobby Schweizer) among other titles. His work covers a wide variety of topics not usually found in video games, including airport security, disaffected copy store workers, global petroleum market, Christmas shopping, tort reform, suburban errands, and pandemic flu. Their games have been played by millions of people and exhibited internationally. He is also a recipient of a Knight News Challenge grant in 2010 for Cartoonist, an attempt at creating authoring tools for interactive political cartoons. He has a bachelors degree in Philosophy and Comparative Literature from the University of Southern California, and a Masters and Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from UCLA.

    Heather Chaplin is an assistant professor of journalism at The New School and author of the acclaimed book, “Smartbomb: The Quest for Art Entertainment and Big Bucks in the Videogame Revolution.” She has been covering games since 2001 for publications like The New York Times GQ, Details, and The Los Angeles Times. She’s currently a regular contributor on the subject for All Things Considered, and speaks regularly on the topic of serious games and indie games at places like The Game Developers Conference, Games for Change, and The Sundance Film Festival. In addition to her journalism, she has acted as adviser to entities like The Corporation for Public Broadcasting and ITVS. She has been interviewed for and cited for her work on video games in publications such as The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times Magazine, BusinessWeek, and The Believer and has appeared on shows such as Talk of the Nation and CBS Sunday Morning.

    Roy Schmidt of BigDoor will offer up an overview of how BigDoor approaches gamification, including a demo of their free gamification API that allows folks to easily add points, virtual currencies, levels, badges, achievements, leaderboards and more. Prior to BigDoor, Roy performed random acts of internet marketing at Microsoft and Walt Disney Internet Group.

    Right now the $25 registration is for both Friday and Saturday (this might change as our budget numbers get more firm). Should the cost change, early signups will be grandfathered in.

    Register now on our Meetup.com page to get in on the special the special rate.

    Is the $25 registration fee beyond your budget? Email us at nyc@hackshackers.com, we have some scholarships available.

    Email us at nyc@hackshackers.com with questions, comments, thoughts, ideas or if you want to be a sponsor or suggest a speaker.

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    Last updated Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011 at 1:29 pm