hackJams – (re)-Designing the Design Competition (and the future of Identity Management)

In recent years the traditional design competition has been criticized for focusing too much on creating new ‘things’ and not addressing real world challenges. To address this issue we have invited international universities and colleges to organize hackJams to tackle the complex issue of (re)-shaping the future of identity management. Hacking is a cultural phenomenon that borrows, appropriates, re-evaluates and manipulates everyday objects, experiences and rules. Jams are about groups of people coming together to solve problems through creativity and innovation to address specific challenges. The hackJams are aimed at students in their 2nd year of specialism or their penultimate degree year and postgraduate students from disciplines as diverse as jewellery, interaction design, computing science and electronics and the physical sciences. This paper presents the experience of the inter-disciplinary hackJam and some of the preliminary design proposals arising from this process.

Key words: Design Competitions, Hackathon, Design Jams, Identity Management, hackJam, Collaborative Design, Research-Practice-Education