GSIPM

Calling all creative MIISfits interested in flexing your ideation and innovation muscles!

CitizenAR is a tech design challenge sponsored by the U.S. State Department that is inviting ten cross-disciplinary, university teams to imagine new ways of engaging city-dwellers in making their environment more sustainable, just and livable using augmented reality technology.

During this fun and informative, day-long hackathon, teams will interact with tech, business, design and urban sustainability leaders from the Bay Area and engage with local youth from San Francisco’s Tenderloin District.  The teams will gain first-hand insight into the livability and environmental problems residents face every day in one of the nation’s most challenging neighborhoods.

Date: September 30^th

Location: Kroc Center, San Francisco

Team size:  3-5 people, multiple teams from MIIS permitted

Application due date: rolling basis, due no later than September 18^th

See full agenda, speaker list, prize list and application on the hackathon website.

 Not familiar with the Tenderloin District? Here’s the skinny: this quarter-square mile neighborhood is home to approximately 25,000 people, including 3,500 families. The neighborhood not only has the highest rate of poverty and violent crime in San Francisco, it is home to the greatest concentration of youth in the city, leaving them extremely vulnerable to a host of issues.

Don’t know much about augmented reality? No worries.  The event will have speakers and mentors to guide teams.  If you are a complete novice to the concept of augmented reality or have never heard of PokemonGo, the organizers encourage you to do some web browsing on the subject before the hackathon.

​Don’t know how to code? Relax, exhale. This is a multi-disciplinary event, so there will be other people there that don’t know how to code either.  This event is focused on ideation and concept development.  Coding and prototype development are optional.

 Have lingering questions? Of course you do! Head over to the charming FAQ page or shoot a note to the organizers: info@citizenAR.org.