About us

“We combine creative minds from CERN and non-profit organisations in interdisciplinary teams to work on humanitarian technology related benefits to society.”

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Find out more in our THE Port Presentation and see the results of last year in our Annual Report

News & Media

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International

Blog & Portfolio

Next Hackathon event

Organised by THE Port Association, hosted by CERN IdeaSquare and with partners from other non-governmental organisations, a three-day problem solving workshop hackathon devoted to humanitarian, social and public interest challenges. Interdisciplinary teams of hand selected participants working together in the fields of:
communication – transport – health – science – education – work – culture – data

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Geneva
October 2021

Social

Tweets by @theportatcern

Structure

If you successfully pass the application, you will be informed about your team members and your challenge 6 weeks ahead of the final event. In this preparation phase your team will be supported to organize video conferences to get to know each other. A collaborative workspace will allow you to jointly collect and communicate ideas, develop specifications, share inspirational pictures and videos, compose lists of needed materials and tools, discuss your strategy and co-edit concept papers, source code and presentations.

Your team coach and a pool of Experts On-Call will be available to help finding organisational and technical solutions. The day before the hackathon you will have the chance to visit experiments at CERN and meet our team in their usual work environment.

During the hackathon you will only have a few scheduled events. After a short welcome and introduction part you will introduce yourself (now in-person) to your team in a 3 minute pitch. In the evening of the first day your team will pitch your project to the other teams in 5 minutes. A midterm review on the second day will allow you to collect external feedback on your findings. A joint work breakfast on the 3rd day will give you the chance to glance into the challenges of the other teams.

Your results you will present and demonstrate in a 7 minute pitch to a broad audience at the cocktail reception in the evening. The after party will give you more space and time for discussion, review and networking. A one page summary of each teams results will be published together with all produced hardware, source code and documentation.

More information you find in our latest participant flyer.

Frequently asked questions

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• Hackathon? Never heard!

  Originally composed from ‘Hack’ and ‘Marathon’ this problem-solving workshops started for intensive collaborative work between software developers – more general, as in our case, it is often seen as limited time innovation focused collaborative effort.
• What is the goal?

  Intense conceptualisations of innovative humanitarian ideas with starting quantitative analysis and conceptual prototypes so that the best ideas survive and can be driven forward after the event.
• How does it work?

  All you need is a laptop with internet connection. Participants are informed mid September about their challenge and team and are supported in the following weeks to prepare the 48 hour final. The Hackathon will contain only few scheduled events: a short introduction phase, mid therm and final reports.
• How do you select participants?

  To apply candidates are requested to fill a online questionnaire and provide a one page CV before the 5th September 2020. A selection team and THE Port Advisory Board propose candidates for a short video interview on which the assembly of the interdisciplinary teams will be based.
• How do I get to CERN and the event space?

  Due to COVID-19, the 2020 hackathon is being held online and requires no travel.
• Do I need to be a hardcore computer specialist?

  No, other than the word hackathon implies, THE Port hackathons are not necessarily purely software related projects and could therefore be of all kinds of nature. Thus we create multidisciplinary teams to add as much variety on skills to the teams as possible.​

In numbers

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Partners & friends

Our members, partners, sponsors and friends are from international and local non-governmental organisations and companies in and around Geneva, Switzerland.

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Meet our team

Without the enthusiastic voluntary work of our Experts On-Call, Organizing Team, Advisory Board and Executive Committee we could not work professionally – a big Thank You and it is fantastic to work with you. If You want to be part of this extraordinary team, please consider a membership, to contact or to follow us on social media.

Executive committee

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Organizing team

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Advisory board

Barbara Warmbein   •   DESY   •   Linear Collider communication and LHC communication for Germany

Ben Segal   •   Honorary CERN-IT staff member   •   Citizen Web Science projects, seminars and hackfests within and outside CERN

David Galbraith   •   Tech entrepreneur, former architect, now designer of digital things – including RSS, Yelp, ‘pinning’

Felix Stähli   •   Impact Hub Geneva   •   Internal Organization, External Space Rental and Partnerships

Francois Grey   •   Université de Genève and Citizen Cyberscience Centre   •   Associate Professor at the University of Geneva

Neal Hartman   •   Berkeley Lab   •   Director and President at CinéGlobe Film Festival

Robin M. Coupland   •   former ICRC   •   Field Surgeon and Medical Adviser

Sascha Schmeling   •   CERN   •   Head of Teacher Programmes and Education Research

Sara Sekkenes   •   United Nations Development Programme   •   Adviser, Conflict Prevention and Recovery

Experts on-call

  

We are looking for volunteers who are willing to share their creativity, innovative thinking and expertise with the teams.

If you want to contribute as ‘Expert On-Call’ and agree to be contacted during the 1.5 month preparation phase, the 72 hour final or both, please sign up with your field of expertise. You have the choice how and when the teams are allowed to contact you. Obviously you are more than welcome to visit the teams during the final and contribute with ideas or constructive feedback.

SIGN UP NOW

Membership

You can become a member of THE Port association. There are three different membership categories available.

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