Tim Lunn
Startup Secrets
Paul Furber
Programming lessons for anyone who wants. No experience at all preferred. By the end you should be able to teach a child the basics.
How to draw in pencil - unleash your creative right brain!
http://maverick1001.deviantart.com for evidence of submitter's qualifications :)
Heidi Schneigansz
A simple virtual (can be rich & interactive or simple and text based) 'Geek school' game that allows people to simulate a start-up and overcome a series of challenges to get VC funding for their ideas.
Henk Kleynhans
Explaining internet freedom
Andy Hadfield
SMS Storytelling.
Biz-dev plan and contact list to help Steve Vosloo grow yoza.mobi - it's a fully functioning storytelling platform already!
Pam Sykes and Elodie Kleynhans
To make a collaborative movie/multimedia presentation based on participants' responses to questions like: what is it that makes you a geek? What does it mean to you to be a geek in South Africa, right now? What is the single biggest contribution you think you can make to the world? If you could have any wish granted, what would it be? We could use the result in schools etc?
Tim Price
The creation of a digital usage heat map, that shows the density of digital tool usage in various locations across South Africa. The benefit of such a map would be to measure the real impact and scale of digital tools in SA.
Shawn Graaff
Rooikrans-clearing = Burning-Man-Team-building/braai-fire-creating Extravaganza!
Andy Volk
Mobile ePub Bookreader (Access to full text of an educator-curated selection of books from the Internet Archive and other free book sources)
Paul Scott
Extend the geolocation API that I am building, or to extend the QR code based mobile rating system
Guy,Taylor
Sprint for geekretreat site
Coenraad Loubser
Practical exercise to illustrate feasibility of drag-and-drop and automatic programming system.
Wesley Lynch
?
Eshaam Rabaney
Geek Fashion: Get the Cutters, Needles and Cotten out and show us what you can do. How about a Geek scarf, maybe a speedo or a simple T-shirt - Losers have to model :-)
Len Weincier
Tent
Sumry
Craig,Rodney
GeekRetreat Revenue stream
PayPal enabled charity websites
Leslie Maliepaard
Host a Rock Star karoke party. All Geeks to dress up as a rock star and then break the ice by showing how badly they sing... always a great way to get to know strangers quickly :-)
Jonathan Maliepaard
An Art project where we consider the Left-Brain/Right Brain challenges we face as IT people every day. Basically if you are right-handed, using your vision to draw with your left hand.
Rochelle Harwin
LAN strategy game where we all plug in and play against each other
Douglas Newman
Developing an instruction manual to raise your geek child
Sam Christie
mindstorms controlled paintball gun pixelated graffiti generator
I have the lego mindstorms and the concept ... now for the weaponry and aim :)
Scott Gray (not sure if he's coming?!)
The great book of geek top fives.
Start a reference/resource that contains a collection of geek's top 5's. This could be anything from useful tips through to entertaining.
All lists are categorised (e.g. startup tips, programming tips, writing great stories, entertainment)
This can be publicised at the begining of the weekend so that everyone has it top of mind the whole time.
We can leave top 5 templates all over the place - bedrooms, loos, tables, food areas where people can just write on them and submit in the top 5 box. (a digital submission would be great too (can just use a google doc)).
At the end of the weekend, all Top Fives are aggregated and stored. They can be released on a day to day basis by a tweet from the Geek Retreat twitter account to generate more followers and further interest about the event.
lots of potential :)
Luisa Mazinter
A crowd-sourced Geek eBook thriller,
Jono Lewis
Communicator, Leader, Out-of-the-box thinker, Aspiring Progressive Trance Producer
A feasibility study or collaborative paper on ways in which the GeekRetreat folks can rally intellectual capital with a view to reviewing whether civil society and business are doing enough to aggregate concerns and present them at a global policy level effectively. In raw, idealist fashion. Open to critiques and commentary from the “elders.” In one line: To open discussion on effective direct democratic information gathering to improve the South African internet. The result could be an open survey or call to tackle what issues are most paining us and then assign representatives to lobby them on global dialogue. I’ll throw my hat in! We could use IdeaScale or something similar. http://opengov.ideascale.com/ is a neat example.
Kerry-Anne Gilowey
1. Teams are tasked with creating tech-themed works of art, using some basic supplies (crayons, poster paints, bits of old wrapping paper) and whatever they can find in the vicinity. Each team could be given certain constraints (e.g. you can only use things starting with the letter ""n"", or you can't use your dominant hand at all) to make things trickier. Works of art could be auctioned later.
2. We could run a geek talent contest. Give each team a theme or an instruction of some kind, and let them have a few hours to come up with something they can perform as a group: perhaps a song, a poem, a hilarious skit or an interpretive dance. Hours of entertainment.
3. We could create a geeky game show – some kind of hybrid of Tellyfun Quiz and Whose Line is it Anyway. The internet is overflowing with good material for this sort of thing.
4. Building any kind of structure is always good for collaboration – and the simpler the materials provided, the more interesting the results. Teams could build actual houses of cards, or bridges made from straws, or animals made out of ice cream sticks. Make it even more challenging by giving each team member a secret mission that may or may not conflict with the secret missions of their team-mates.","Communicator, User experience-r"
Alexandra Fraser
Leader, Out-of-the-box thinker, Business model analysis
A geeky art instillation or geek team Olympics
Tasleem Williams
Coder, Leader, Out-of-the-box thinker
Mine Field - Objects are scattered in an indoor or outdoor place. One person verbally guides team members who are blindfolded through the minefield to retrieve the parts to build a team flag. Only a limited amount of paint colours are available so teams compete for it. Afterwards we can make team flags.
Roger,Norton
Communicator, Leader, Out-of-the-box thinker
Pete Flynn
Leader, User experience-r, Out-of-the-box thinker
Geek Dragons Den
Two phase idea contest. Round one, day one: high concept pitch. All entrants get two minutes and words only (no preso) to pitch their idea. Can be a new business, an app, a use of existing tech whatever. Crowd votes on ""feasibility, viability and desirability"" by cheering (?)
Pick top 5.
Crowd picks a day 2 voting panel.
Round two, day two - Round one ""winners"" head up a team including whoever else wants to assist them. 10 min pitch with visuals (wireframes etc.) on a basic template (I can draw one up based on our RAMP internal contest).
Judging Panel votes on ""feasibility, viability and desirability"" - talks through it.
Crowd makes final vote by cheering/hands/ballot what ever
Winners get bragging rights.
Who knows, maybe we hatch an idea that can actually be implemented post retreat and make a real difference.
Larry Claasen
Communicator, User experience-r, Out-of-the-box thinker
Have team send messages to each other over a 2km to 5km distance without telling it verbally, writing it down, texting it or passing it on through a relay.
If preindustrial societies had to make do with drums and smoke signals, what will our intrepid geeks come up with?
Brian Pinnock
Break into teams of about 5-10 and design a Geek comic super hero. Also create villains and other characters. Create a story board with a setting that illustrates current issues in the community. One could do this either low or high tech. Low tech would be with paint and posters which might be messy and more fun.
Example of a current issue in the community could be:
The problem of a lack of early stage VCs in the SA tech startup space.
Comic could deal with issues like .... coming up with a justification for the creation of an early stage VC market in the South African Tech space.
Teams would need to come up with a comic book pitch to illustrate to late stage venture Capitalists that not investing in early stage startups is more risky than they believe. The late stage VCs lose out on deal flow because
(a) either the promising startups have crashed due to lack of funding or
(b) have survived the early phase and are already at revenue and don't require VC funding or
(c) Are getting funding from offshore sources","Communicator, Leader, Out-of-the-box thinker, Innovator and product developer"
Jarred Cinman and Heather Ford: Facilitators, Stirrers
