What is a hacker, what is SHA2017, and how do we use it to develop something we need?
We recently visited the SHA2017 event in the Netherlands.
SHA2017 is a hackers festival attended by people to share knowledge, technological advancements, and experimentation.
Now before you start assuming LIBERO has become a hacking company, lets explain what a ‘hacker’ is:
“An expert at programming and solving problems with a computer.”
This means that even libraries are getting good at hacking; maker spaces, 3D printing, and media creation, all fit under this description of solving problems with a computer.
The SHA2017 festival showed us just how far we can go with creating solutions to our “every day” needs.
SHA2017 has a huge schedule of in depth talks and discussion panels, but many of these solutions are being showcased in the camp area, which has become a major part of the festival.
Attendees are spread across 22 fields use the camp as their stage, developing small villages in a Glastonbury-style way, where you will find the craziest of hacks.
It’s also the only festival to supply mains power and high-speed internet to every tent on the camp site that would put some parts of Australia to shame.
In fact, these villages got so big, that guests have been forced to use their hacking skills to provide their own transport. An electric propelled sofa did the trick, converted lawnmowers, and it wouldn’t be a festival with an electric powered beer crate all used to propel people around the massive site.
Now, these aren’t solutions to real problems – but Facebook wasn’t created to solve world peace.
But by instilling a little bit of creativity into our daily lives and by having a bit of fun, hopefully, we push the innovation boundary a little further and ask why… Why can’t we have free roaming internet accessibility? Why not share a little culture and have a Finnish sauna in the middle of the camp site, why not have a 3D printer create the resources needed in the library?
If we think hacker, we might just stumble across something revolutionary.
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