Talk to me, Berlin! Hackathon

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Natural speech interfaces for the next generation – NOW

Unlock the power of natural speech interfaces 14th-16h of June, 2018 in Berlin. Come to design and build your own voice-controlled systems, using Google Homes, Amazon Echos, or your virtual platform of choice.

CHALLENGE

New developments have made it possible to communicate with devices using natural speech. Amazon, Google and Apple are stepping up their game to bring voice interfaces to the mass market. With that, a plethora of new  ways to solve user problems has opened up. Having experienced how relatively simple it is to create your own voice apps and skills, we would like to share this with you. At the same time, the challenge is to shift our minds from pictures and buttons to a new generation of interfaces that includes natural speech. How will you harness the power of VOICE?

EVENT

Create the voice application of your dreams in 48 hours at CODE University of Applied Science. Bring your insights, creativity, ideas, problems and laptop. Food, caffeine (and other beverages), home devices and other essentials will be there waiting for you.

Don’t have a team and/or idea yet? No worries! On the first night you can get to know your fellow competitors and possible future teammates and hammer out your ideas. Of course you are also welcome to bring your idea and team ready to go.

ABOUT YOU

Curious about these new home voice devices everyone seems to be talking about? Dream of building an AI assistant that will put Iron Man to shame? Whether developer, writer, designer or anything in between – if you are excited about creating amazing voice interfaces for the next generation of devices, this event is for you.

A special shout out to the women: this event is also for you, even if you don't yet have coding skills!

ABOUT US

We try to keep it short and sweet here. Visit us at http://talktome.berlin for more information. 


PROGRAM (Preliminary)

Thursday 14th of June

  • 16:45 - 17:30 Doors open

  • 17:30 - 18:00 Introduction 

  • 18:00 - 18:40 Karen Kaushansky speaks about: Designing the Future, with Voice.

  • 18:40 - 20:00 Guided tour for tools and platforms (Amazon Alexa, Actions with Google, etc.)

  • 20:00 - 21:00 Forming groups and pitching

Friday 15th of June

  • 9.00 - 10:00 Amazon Alexa workshop
    An Amazon Alexa export will present the platform and give you an introduction on Skills with Alexa.

  • 10.00 - 11:00 Google workshop
    An evangelist from Google will present the Google Assistant platform and gives you an introduction on Actions with Google.

  • 11.00 - 14:00 
    VUI workshop The DevPost Hackathon grand prize winner tips. Adva Levin will tell about storytelling elements in VUI.
    JOVO workshop Voice App Development Deep Dive. Jan König from Jovo will walk through the essentials of developing voice apps that work on both Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant
    Storyline workshop. Alexey Vidanov and Karile Klug will show, how to create Amazon Alexa skills without code using Storyline.
    Bottalk workshop. Andrey Esaulov from Bottalk will explain how to create complex Alexa Skills with Simple Markup Language
    Algolia API workshop

  • 14:00 - ... Tools are selected. Start of the hacking
    Coaching, Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner is served over the day.

Saturday 15th of June

  • 08:30 - 10:00 Breakfast is served
    Get a strong coffee and grab a bite. The finish line comes closer.

  • 08:00 - 16:15 Work-away!
    Coaches will be on site to help out with questions. Prototypes to be presented have to be finalized and a presenter (or group of them) to be chosen in each team.

  • 12:30 - 14:00 Lunch is served
    Grab a bite to replenish you batteries!

  • 13:00 - 15:00 Pitch coaching
    Send in selected team members for pitch coaching sessions of 20 min. each. (2 hours cover 6 groups, sessions with different people are run simultaneously)

  • 16:15 Deadline
    Deadline. Groups should send the code and slides (can also share through github public or private repositories etc)

  • 16:30 - 18:30 Pitches!
    Each group has 5 minutes to demo their prototype followed up by a 5 minute Q&A with the jury.

  • 18:30 - 19:30 Cool down
    For those who want to stay a bit at the venue, time has been reserved to chat, have some food, drinks an opportunity to pat each other on the back.

  • 08:00 - 16:15 Breakfast is served
    Get a strong coffee and grab a bite. The finish line comes closer.

  • 20:00 - open end Afterparty
    Cheers!

Location

WeWork Sony Center
Berlin, Germany

Dates

From 14th June 2018 - 05:00 PM
to 16th June 2018 - 08:00 PM