YACATHON

What is a YACATHON?

A play on the traditional 'hackathon', the YACATHON hosted by the Young Africa Centre (YAC) aims to involve those who have never participated in a hackathon before. Through a 3 day sprint, young people - aged 18 to 25, interested in tech, enterprise and design, will create tech solutions to tackle problems facing the African-Caribbean community in a creative and collaborative space.  It's a quick way to brainstorm ideas that can tangibly push people's lives forward.

Inspiration?

We were inspired to do hold a YACATHON due to the lack of those from the African-Caribbean community in tech. We're changing this by providing free workshops and a hackathon. As the economy in the UK increasingly becomes tech focused, we want to make sure that nobody is left behind.

Who can participate?

• Students, graduates, young professionals (18 - 25 years)
• People from the African & Caribbean diaspora
• People interested in/or have a background in computer science, art & design, education, social sector, government, health, media (traditional & non-traditional)
• Newcomers & experienced are welcome

Expert or novice, by the end of the YACATHON you'll generate and test out inventive ideas. Design an app, make a robot or create a virtual reality and win prizes that will take your business idea to the next level.

What is the theme?

We'll be tacking social issues that affect the African-Caribbean community in the UK.  Whether that be racial prejudice in the recruitment process to the over representation of black people in prison to the lack of black british history in the curriculum.  The YACATHON is an opportuity to desgin tech for good.

Friday 17th November - Entrepreneurship & Technology Workshops hosted by Balloon Ventures and Xuntos

For the first half of the you'll get knowledge on how to design a basic business model, generate and test your ideas quickly.  During the second half, you get a flavour of the technological tools out there to support your business venture plus you'll leave with a small clickable protoype that you can show off to others.

Saturday 18th - Sunday 19th November Hackathon

Over the next 2 days, you'll take what you've learnt from the previous workshops and get hacking away at the problems that you've defined.  Once teams have formed, created an idea and made a clickable prototype, it'll be time to demonstrate your ideas in front of judges.  The winning team will receive one month of free usage at the co-working space The Hub located in central London and a free business consultation with Do It Now Now worth $150 to support you in the next steps of your business venture plus more exclusive content for those that attend.

Your judges will include:

Andy Ayim - Product Manager at World First and Diversity Advocate

Deborah Okenla - Membership Manager at Huckletree West and Founder of YSYS

We've got loads more features that we will be announcing shortly, so stay tuned.

Sunday 19th November- Demo Day

If you would like to attend the demo day on the Sunday afternoon tickets will be made available soon.  It's going to be an exciting event with fantastic ideas being shared, so come along and support those in the community taking steps to make a positive impact.

Once you've signed up we'll send you further information about the next steps before the YACATHON begins.

Sign up now to register. Spaces are limited. If you are over 25 but still want to support the participants of the YACATHON, or if you are a company looking to get involved then please get in touch with us: youth@africacentre.org.uk