Workshops Listings

Hacks and Hackers Hack Day

Tuesday, September 7th, 2010

ScraperWiki

Title: Hacks and Hackers Hack Day
Location: MadLab
Description: Scraperwiki, the award-winning new screen scraper and data mining tool, funded by 4iP, is putting on a one day practical hack day in Manchester at which web developers and designers will pair up with journalists and bloggers to produce a number of projects and stories based on public data.
Start Time: 9:30
Date: 2010-10-15
End Time: 19:30

ScraperWiki is thrilled to announce its next event for journalists and programmers:Hacks and Hackers Hack Day Manchester, a chance for web developers and designers to pair up with journalists and bloggers to produce a number of projects and stories based on public data.

Who is it for? We hope to attract ‘hacks’ and ‘hackers’ from all different types of backgrounds: people from big media organisations, as well as individual online publishers and freelancers.

How much? Absolutely free, thanks to our sponsors, Inside the M60, Guardian Open Platform, the Digital Editors Network, Northwest Vision & Media, Journal Local andMEN Media, for making the event possible, and our hosts the Manchester Digital Laboratory. Refreshments, lunch and evening snacks will be all be provided.

What happens on the day? The aim is to show journalists how to use programming and design techniques to create online news stories and features; and vice versa, to show programmers how to find, develop, and polish stories and features. All sorts of data was scraped and played with at our past events: in Liverpool, projects included mashes ofpolice, libraries and courts data. Birmingham saw lots of health-related projects, as well as scraping of political party donor and leisure centre information.

This four minute video from Liverpool gives you a flavour of the kind of projects that can be developed.

Armed with their laptops and WIFI, journalists and developers will be put into teams of around four to develop their ideas, with the aim of finishing final projects that can be published and shared publicly. Each team will then present their project to the whole group. Overall winners will receive a prize at the end of the day.

NB: We will also be running another event in Leeds on Thursday October 28th 2010. More details soon.

With thanks to our sponsors: MEN Media, Inside the M60, THe Digital Editors Network, Journal Local, Vision+Media, Open Platform, The Guardian.

NB: We’re still seeking one more sponsor to get involved. If you think your organisation might be interested please contact judith [at] scraperwiki.com. Or get in touch with any other questions!

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EASA 2010 in Manchester

Monday, August 23rd, 2010

EASA is a completely student driven, volunteer run, non-government / non-profit organisation. Each year since its inception in Liverpool in 1981 its focus has been on exchanging ideas, culture and experience between 400-450 of the brightest students of architecture from over 40 different nations in Europe over 2 weeks of lectures, debates and workshops. (more…)

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Connecting 2.0 Communities

Monday, August 23rd, 2010

Connecting 2.0 Communities

Title: Connecting 2.0 Communities
Location: MadLab
Description: Advice and support for voluntary or community sector organisation, freelancer or creative who would like to know more about “digital technology”.
Start Time: 14:00
Date: 2010-09-22
End Time: 18:30

About this event…

If you are a voluntary or community sector organisation, freelancer or creative who would like to know more about “digital technology” and how it can help your work or your organisation it can sometimes be difficult to know where to go for advice and support.

Yet Manchester has a wide range of digital communities – from programmers, to social media specialists to digital content producers – who meet up regularly to share good practice.

Connecting 2.0 Communities is a pilot event to give anyone in the not-for-profit sector an opportunity to meet these digital communities – many of whom are happy to provide free advice and support, and would like to work more with community groups.

Watch a video of the First Connecting 2.0 Communities event here.

What you will find out…

At this free to attend “drop in” event there will be an opportunity to :-

  • get a one-to-one advice session about your own particular digital needs
  • find out more about Manchester’s many “user groups” and informal meet-ups
  • hear short introductions about key topics and about other opportunities in the city

Where and when does it take place…

Drop in any time after 2.00 – either stay for a short time, or stay all afternoon.

  • 2.00-4.30 Drop in any time you want
  • 4.30-5.30 Short Presentations(Details TBC)
  • 5.30-5.45 Questions to the panel
  • 5.45-6.30 Drop in Continues

Why register…

Book your places here.

Its a drop-in so you don’t have to book a place to attend, but if you do, we can send you an update on the lineup, and also you can let us know if you have any access requirements. The drop-in is on the ground floor of Madlab, but the presentations may take place on the 2nd floor and there is no lift, so please let us know if this is a problem so that we can make arrangements accordingly.

I can’t come for the whole event…

We’ve arranged the event to be as flexible as possible. If you want to come at 2.00 and stay all afternoon, or come at 6.00 for the last half hour that’s absolutely fine. The city centre location means that if you are passing through town after work then you can pop in. So don’t worry if you’re not able to come for the whole afternoon.

It sounds great, but I’m busy that day…

We will be running further Connecting 2.0 Communities events at Madlab in late November and late January.

Who will be attending?

We’ll have more details soon but here’s a taster.

- Manchester Digital Development Agency, offering advice and support on all aspects of digital Manchester

- Madlab, find out about this new “community space” for digital working

- Netsquared, networking events for the voluntary sector

- Social Media Cafe & Social Media Surgeries, find out more about these regular groups to help you use the social media more effectively.

- Voluntary sector digital organisations, learn more about what organisations there are that can help you out.

- WordPress experts – Manchester WordPress User Group takes place following this event – so there will be local wordpress enthusiasts on hand to talk through your problems.

- Geek Girls – events to encourage women in technology to get together

Need to find out more?

For more information contact Adrian Slatcher (a.slatcher@manchesterdda.com)

We’ve also set up a Connecting 2.0 Communities group on the Social Media Cafe Manchester Ning. We’ll add new resources here when they become available.

Who has organised it?

This event is funded by the Working Neighbourhoods Fund and run on behalf of Manchester City Council. It has been organised by Manchester Digital Development Agency in partnership with Manchester Digital Laboratory (MadLab). Many thanks to all the digital organisations who have agreed to attend to make this event happen.

Other Opportunities

WordPress User Group – follows on from the Connecting2.0Communities event on February 17th. Join the group here.

Social Media Cafe Manchester – March 2nd, Venue TBC. Join the Ning here.

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U³

Tuesday, August 10th, 2010

U³

Title: U³
Location: MadLab
Description: The first ever U³ – the Ubuntu and Upstream UnWorkshop day
Start Time: 11:00
Date: 2010-08-28
End Time: 19:00

The day will be a series of attendee-led ad-hoc talks and workshops, and is held in collaboration with HACMan, ManLUG and Manchester Free Software, and is inspired by the Ubuntu Global Jam event which is being held on the same weekend.

It’s an opportunity to help show users how to get involved in wider distribution work – both in the projects they’re using already (maybe Ubuntu, maybe just some specific Free & Open Source applications) but also in the ‘upstream’ projects, such as Debian, Gnome and others.

Because we’ve got limited space, we can only allocate 60 tickets, and to make it fair for everyone, we’re giving people access to these tickets in two waves, one from 1PM on Thursday 12th August, and the second at 7pm, but if you’re able to come along to help out with technical information or guidance, please let us know and we’ll make sure that you’re invited when the flood gates open!

Go to http://u-cubed.eventbrite.com to reserve your ticket now!

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Girl Geek Tea Party – Wonderful WordPress Workshop

Sunday, July 11th, 2010

Girl Geek Tea Party

Title: Girl Geek Tea Party
Location: MadLab
Description: Girl Geek Dinner has got a little sister – Girl Geek Afternoon Tea!
Start Time: 14:00
Date: 2010-07-25
End Time: 16:30
Cost: £2 booking fee to secure a place on the workshop (money to go towards facilitator and venue costs)*
Who: Girl Geeks, bring along anyone you like! Your friends, sisters, mums, cousins, daughters, colleagues… who might be interested in doing some techy stuff… Even boys can come if you want to bring them as your date!

But more importantly, What

Jordan Hatch (http://jordanh.net / @1jh) will help us venture into the world of WordPress, a very popular content management system that is used as the basis for many websites and blogs! You will learn how to install and set up WordPress from scratch on a web server, which gives you much more freedom than the blogs offered on wordpress.com.

Please note: Level of experience required: Basic HTML and CSS skills, experience with using
web interfaces and perhaps WordPress as an author / editor would be helpful. Having heard the words MYSQL database and FTP before would help, but absolutely no worries if not – we’re doing step-by-step instructions. As always, the workshop will be very basic and there will be some volunteers to help out when you’re stuck!

If in doubt: come along and see what it’s like, we’re here to help you explore things. And if all else fails, there’s always tea and biscuits :)

Brief Breakdown of the WordPress Workshop

  • Introduction to the ‘famous’ 5 minute install
  • A guided tour around the admin panel with time to play around and put a couple of posts and pages in
  • Finding plugins and installing them
  • Then a break for tea and cake :)
  • Find a new theme and install it
  • Learn how to change CSS in a template

Bring along…?

  • Your laptop (with working WiFi) to get involved with the hands-on parts of the WordPress workshop.
  • Your favourite mug
  • Your favourite biscuits, cupcakes, tea, coffee (we’ll have the basics, but in case you fancy something slightly more interesting… :)
  • Your friends, sisters, mums, cousins, daughters, colleagues… who might be interested in doing some techy stuff.

For more info & to secure your ticket, go to http://girlgeekteaparty.eventbrite.com

* After many people booking tickets and not turning up for the previous workshop we have had to resort to a booking fee to make sure there will be interested techies in the workshops on the day. Sorry for any inconvenience caused.*

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The Girl Geek Dinners are a worldwide movement, with an estimated number of 60 groups in over 20 countries. In Manchester, the Girl Geek Tea Party sessions were started as a more activity oriented, “family friendly” addition to the dinners. The Tea Party workshops are held monthly on Sunday afternoons at MadLab, a hackspace in Manchester’s Northern Quarter, and include hands-on activities such as an introduction to open source hardware (“Arduino”), web development (HTML/CSS) and “Build your own PC” sessions. All workshops are run by volunteers and are free to attend, we only ask for donations that go towards MadLab.

We are aiming to provide a friendly and relaxed environment in which girls and women who are interested in science can get an insight into the different aspects of technology – outside of courses and classrooms. With six successful events so far, several dozen participants from young people to computing experts, and a lot of positive feedback, we are optimistic that the Girl Geek Tea Parties will become an important part of Manchester’s vibrant digital technology scene.

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