Software developers around the region are being invited to take part in a national charity hack in aid of Ambition Lab at the Sunderland Software Centre on the 29th-30th November.
The Ambition Lab Charity Hack, a national event taking place across the Cisco NVI video presence network, is seeking to recruit 150 developers from across the country to volunteer their time to come together in person and virtually to generate ideas and solutions to help young people from disadvantaged backgrounds achieve their goals.
By connecting to people at different Cisco NVI centres across the country, Ambition Lab aim to spark ideas and breed a true spirit of innovation to imagine and build solutions that help raise aspirations among disadvantaged young people.
Evidence shows that young people from poorer backgrounds achieve disproportionately less in life. Contrary to popular belief, this has nothing at all to do with their levels of ambition. It’s not what young people want that’s the problem. Rather it’s what they end up expecting they’ll achieve.
Ambition Lab is a cutting edge, myth-busting, digital project set up to tackle this social problem with disruptive innovation techniques.
The project is spearheaded by Newcastle-based youth charity Keyfund and Nominet Trust to understand the real reasons behind this inequality, to influence those who can make a difference and to create solutions using digital technology.
There are four main components to the project:
Research – carried out by Keyfund and Nominet Trust into young people’s motivation and the structures of opportunity needed to achieve their ambitions. This information will be used to form the background to digital solutions.
Documentary film – to inform and inspire youth experts and hackers to address the problems of youth inequality. The full film can be viewed here www.ambitionlab.co.uk/film
30 hour Hackathon – Ambition Lab need volunteers with brilliant minds and technical skills to help develop solutions that will even out this playing field and help young people from all backgrounds realise their potential and ambition.
Crowd-funding- Nominet Trust is providing a starter pot to kick-start a Crowdfunding campaign. Ambition Lab intend to raise the cash needed to take the best ideas through to full development and get them out there in the hands of young people who need it most.
For now it is up to you! If you would like to volunteer your time to be part of this worthy, ground-breaking project, please register your attendance via the button below. Please select which NVI Centre you would prefer to attend and let us know what your key skills are!
The addresses for each individual NVI Centre can be found at www.nvinetwork.com
