Bonnier Hosts Mobile Hackathon Targeting Female Entrepreneurs

    Bonnier, the publisher of Olivia, Divaani, and Evita, is supporting a mobile hackathon to promote female entrepreneurship and making mobile development accessible to newcomers. The aim is to create female-friendly lifestyle apps – or at least a proof of concept prototypes that not only work, but look good and are user friendly. Along with the app building there will be presentations on mobile design, trends in mobile media, as well as shorter talks and workshops on development in technology, mobile development for newcomers, and more. The event will be held at the Aalto Venture Garage in Helsinki from the 25th to the 27th this month.

    “The goal of the event is to bring people together, promote the magazines and see what comes out of the mix,” says Krista Kauppinen, the organizer of the event. “It’s really a playground for ideas, with experienced mobile developers on hand as coaches and the magazines serving as inspiration, not only in regards to their themes but also the visual language used.”

    The Bonnier Dev Camp is open to mobile developers on all platforms, user interface and graphic designers, as well as what Kauppinen calls visionaries: fans of the magazine or women who have ideas for fun or useful lifestyle apps they want to come to life. Speaking at the event will be Teppo Hudson of Publishzer, Linda Liukas of StartupLife and RailsGirls, and Tuomas Jääskeläinen, the art director of Bonnier Publication.

    It should be noted that the event is open to both men and women, and aside from building apps the event is about also about networking, learning and having fun. I think the hackathon will work out great for all parties involved– Bonnier gets to tap into a weekend’s worth of creativity, and newcomers and experienced mobile developers will get to learn new things and see what the demands and goals of professional application development is like.

    On top of that, the hackathon will end in a demo and the most promising application prototypes will be rewarded. If some of the ideas that evolve are interesting and promising from Bonnier Publications Oy’s point of view, it’s possible that the team behind the prototype could be hired to take it further.

    You can sign up for the free event on the Hackathon’s website, here.