In 2011, Hacking Autism began an ambitious journey to connect the autism community together with the world of technology developers. We gathered hundreds of ideas and came together as a community in October of 2011 for the first ever "Hacking Autism" event. Our mission was to develop innovative, touch-enabled applications for the autism community and make this software available for free to the autism community. Now, we are bringing the community back together for the next round of "Hacking Autism." This time around, we're posing several broad problems that are designed to to get you thinking, creating and hacking solutions. In June 2012 with the RHoK platform you:
- Pick a problem to try to solve
- Pick your location
- Hack Autism!
While we encourage you to work on whatever passion project related to autism you may have, we've worked with our advisory committee and the community to come up with some sample problems you may choose to try to solve at the hackathon...
- Adults on the spectrum don't have easy access to tools, tips and techniques to deal with bullying, getting help and interacting with others in different situations.
- People with ASD suffer from social anxiety and struggle with everyday routines
- Non-verbal, severely affected people with ASD can have a hard time showing doctors, caregivers where physical pain is occuring
- "Many children who are verbal have difficulty creating stories, and forming sentences. They have difficulty putting sentencestogether to tell a story (about their day, about an activity they’ve just done, about a book, etc.) "
The first "Hacking Autism" in October 2011 was focused on touch technologies - this time around, there are no limits to the technology platforms you can choose! For example, you could develop for the web, mobile, video game platforms like Kinect or even design a social game or board game! It's totally up to you and your expertise... and the team you assemble!
There is also no constraint in terms of what your focus is on the autism spectrum, that's up to you! For example, if you want to build a game for higher functioning ASD that's great! If your passion is to focus on the more severely affected and non-verbal, that's great too!