Can you hack creativity in 48 hours? One agency thinks so

Creativity isn’t a specialised niche in the advertising industry any more. Everyone needs a little spark of it. With that in mind, digital agency HelloComputer and its parent company Draftfcb have organised a hack-a-thon, set to take place on 10 and 11 November aimed at encouraging and showcasing a pioneering spirit in creativity and innovation.

The hack-a-thon is open to teams of no more than five members. According to the organisers, these can be active in the marketing, communications and IT industries… or not. “The only prerequisite, they say “is that each team combines creative and technical skills”.

According to group executive creative director Mark Tomlinson: “Hellocomputer has from day one approached projects with a ‘do anything’ attitude, often combining simple technology and inspired creativity to produce ground-breaking results.

“This is the essence of our new hack-a-thon initiative, where we co-create freely, inspiring the greater digital community to deliver unlimited solutions with limited resources.”

At the start of the 48-hour session, the teams will be tasked with creating a prototype of their idea. This will then be presented to attendees and a panel of judges made up of technologists and creatives.

The brief at the inaugural hack-a-thon, says the organisers, will be quite broad: “to combine creativity and technology in an innovative and engaging way”.

They claim however that the ultimate aim of the event will be to hack for good:

The outcome will be to develop practical and open-source solutions to affect positive change, using the skills of the creative and tech industries.

Details of the event can be found on the site, registration closes 30 October.