What’s the futuristic big picture solution that’s really going to drive youth and sport?

This weekend’s three city hackathon may have the answer. Pay Attention.

“Social impact hack”…wtf dot ios dot com?

I am absolutely buzzing about an event we (OpenSports) are hacking at this weekend in Kansas City appropriately called Play4Tomorrow. It’s a Sport for Youth Development “Hackathon” and this probably means nothing to you unless you have spent at least five months — like me — trying to navigate the tech world.

Hackathon = Diverse skill sets collaborating + creative juices + visionary concepts + time limit + productive atmosphere + competition (PRIZE$$!) = insane innovative breeding ground for new ideas and solutions.

How our weekend will “play” out?

OpenSports (and other competitors) will be presented with a problem on Friday, that sports organizations are facing… it will focus on one or any combination of physical literacy, mental health, education, social inclusion.

Then we will all have 24 hours to build an innovative tech solution, by harnessing all of our respective teams’ shared knowledge from our diverse backgrounds and skill sets. Some of our team will literally be running around Kansas city, meeting coordinators of different sports organizations.

Between Friday and Sunday, we will have married theory, application, simplicity, software, and hardware into an actual usable product that we will be able to demo and that you can actually use. It might have virtual reality… it might have bots… it might BE a robot…

Answers to the Questions you may be thinking:

1. Yes, we will probably not sleep.

2. No, we will not be coding in our pajamas. We may dress pajama-chique instead.

3. Yes we will probably eat a lot of chocolate and chips, just like we do on the regular anyways.

Considering the incredibly talented roster of attendees between the three locations (Kansas City, Toronto, and Palo Alto), it is hard to imagine the brilliant ideas that will be seen through all the way from thought to execution over the weekend — the atmosphere will be absolutely electric! Together, we will all be story creators, content curators, and global change makers.

If you want to stay current and connected this weekend, follow us as we lead you through this journey with the #play4tomorrow hashtag.

See you soon KANSAS CITY!

Alicia and the OpenSports Team