In 2013 Glasgow beat 29 other UK cities to win the Technology Strategy Board Future City Demonstrator competition. This awarded the city £24 million to showcase how other UK cities can become smarter, more efficient and perhaps most importantly more open. As part of the project the city is running a series of Hackathons called ‘Future Hacks’.

The Future Hacks take the format adopted by the likes of Startup Weekend and Launch48 – pitch on the Friday, work over the weekend and pitch to win on the Sunday. The teams use the 48 hours to form teams, validate their idea, find customers and build something meaningful. Food and drinks included and experts on hand to help you.

The Future Hacks differs from most hacks (and is applicable to startups) because there is a £20,000 cash prize for the winner. It’s effectively a launch pad for your idea, a sizable stack of seed money. A comparative example is spending a few days to write a funding proposal, business plan or even producing a deck for an investor pitch in all these scenarios you’re up against a host of other startups.

At the very worst the Future Hack weekends are an opportunity to validate the idea, work with domain experts and by the Monday morning have a stack of experience, contact book full or talented people and a product as a showcase of your talent. At best you walk away with all the above plus a meaningful amount of money to take forward into a sustainable business.

Future Hack One – Public Safety

South Block, February 2014

The first Future Hack actually took place in February of this year around the theme of public safety. There were 11 teams with a mix of participants from designers, developers, marketers to domain experts from the public sector. With the core principle of ‘Open’ many of the teams open sourced their work and made it available for others to extend and work on.

Future Hack Two – Energy

Whisky Bond, March 2014

The second hack (taking place this weekend) is around the theme of energy. Modern life is fuelling massive energy consumption. From transport, to manufacture and industry to our homes and media we are using more and more energy each year. We are reliant on finite supplies of energy and costs are increasing so a lot of good can come from a weekend of talented people hacking together new products and ideas.

Future Hack Three – Health

TBA, April 2014

Health is a topic which affects all of us and health issues are increasingly found in the public spotlight. Rise of diabetes and obesity, the ageing population, the over use of antibiotics. What can we as a technically able community do to provide services and products to empower citizens and the NHS to provide better health care, better preventative measures?

Future Hack Four – Transport

TBA, May 2014

A hack that will be also touch many Glasgow citizens is transport. Those who sit on the M8 stuck in yet another traffic jam, or those using our public transport infrastructure and no to forget the cyclists dodging pot holes and buses. This is a means to produce products which can directly impact your ability traverse the city. Make the journey shorter? Quicker? More enjoyable?

The hacks are all free to attend and open to all, not just designers and developers. For more information on the Future Hacks and the Open Glasgow project follow the @openglasgow Twitter or check out the Open Glasgow homepage.

For disclosure: I’m currently working as part of the Open Glasgow team on the Active Travel demonstrator.