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The Hacktober Fest Way
A roundup of 71 North updates
71 NORTH
October 22, 2024
The Hacktober Fest Way
As we wrap up an exciting month at the studio, we’re celebrating the connections, creativity, and challenges we’ve tackled together. From tackling local issues to exploring global challenges, we’ve seen meaningful conversations and innovative ideas come to life. Here’s the Hacktober Fest way:
Tuesday: Join us as we host Professor Andrea Guzman for a session on becoming Disinformation Detectives. We’ll explore the tools and techniques for detecting and combating disinformation, a timely topic in today’s media landscape.
Wednesday: Professor David Gunkel leads a thought-provoking session on the opportunities and challenges presented by Large Language Models (LLMs). It’s a deep dive into this cutting-edge technology's ethical and practical considerations.
Saturday: Get ready to travel back in time! Startup Standup takes participants into a Steampunk world, where they’ll create innovative products using improv techniques to pitch them. This unique event will be extra special, featuring Paul Kassel, Dean of the College of Visual and Performing Arts, as part of the action. It’s a fun, creative way to explore entrepreneurship while connecting with fellow innovators.
This week promises to be a dynamic mix of critical thinking, creativity, and fun. Let’s cap off the month by coming together to learn, innovate, and have a (steam) blast.
See you at 71 North!
Startup Standup – Hackathon meets Improv
Startup Standup is a one-of-a-kind event that blends the worlds of improvisation, storytelling, pitching, product development, and comedy to create a unique and engaging experience for participants. The event highlight is the participants' showcase, where the spirit of a hackathon meets the excitement of improv comedy. In this competition-like scenario, participating teams are given random innovation elements to create a fictional product and then pitch it in a fun and entertaining way.
🗓 Event Date: Saturday, October 26
⏰ Time: 9:30 AM to 5:30 PM
📍 Location: 71 North Partnership Studio
Register and bring a friend: https://cglink.me/2sZ/r408288
Approved for Honors Engaged and Business Passport credits.
Your big opportunity may be right where you are now.
This Week at 71 North
Tuesday:
11:00 AM - 2:00 PM: Food Systems Ideation - Chef Bryan Flower is planting seeds for future initiatives.
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM: Office Hour with Richard Mocarski - Join us for an informal office hour with NIU’s Vice President of Research, Richard Mocarski. Bring your lunch and join in at the Ingenious bar to meet and greet our new leader.
1:00 PM: NCSSC 24-25 Case Study Competition Team - Dr. Chung meets with the team for a deep dive into the upcoming case study competition.
2:00 PM: Agile Espresso - Enjoy coffee and conversations about Agile practices.
5:00 PM to 6:30 PM: Tech - FOR GOOD - Taco Tuesday! - This week, we are teaming up with the College of Business DeLaVega Lab to bring NIU’s champion, Dr. Andrea Guzman, who will help us become a Disinformation Detective. Afterward, we’ll walk over to La Salsa for tacos. Tech Tacos are Business Passport and Honors Engaged approved!
Social media is a great way for people to express themselves, connect with others, and find information. However, false and malicious information can also find its way onto your FYP (for you page). Sometimes the misinformation is obvious, but rumors and lies can also be presented more subtly and end up being spread unintentionally by large numbers of users. From false claims about immigrants eating pets to wild accusations about the personal and political agendas of candidates, social media users are finding themselves scrolling through a lot of problematic information regarding the upcoming election. In this workshop, NIU Associate Professor of Communication Andrea L. Guzman explains just how so much bad information ends up on social media and how users can help to stop disinformation instead of accidentally contributing to it.
The "Tech for Good" workshop series at Northern Illinois University, College of Business and Office of Innovation challenges the prevailing narrative that technology is solely responsible for societal ills and environmental degradation. Through interactive workshops, it showcases how technology, when developed and applied ethically and responsibly, can be a powerful force for positive transformative change. Topics covered include design thinking, digital entrepreneurship, ethical leadership, and innovation in action. The series addresses valid concerns around tech's impacts and equips students with strategies to mitigate potential harms while inspiring them to use technology as a potent force for good. Ultimately, it aims to cultivate a new generation of tech-savvy innovators committed to making a meaningful difference in the world.
5:00 PM to 7:00 PM: Huskie Hackers - Prep for the Imagine Cup by Microsoft
Unlock your startup’s potential with the Imagine Cup – the premier global technology startup competition for student founders using AI technologies on the Microsoft Cloud. Compete for the grand prize of USD 100,000 and participate in a mentorship session with Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella.
Wednesday:
11:00 AM to 1:00 PM: Sport Management Innovation Lab with Dr. Chung and Dr. Ishaq.
12:00 PM to 2:00 PM: VR Sampler in the Opportunity Zone - Sample a VR experience and connect with Adam in “real reality.” Everyone’s welcome to explore!
2:00 PM to 3:00 PM: LLM 101: Opportunities and Challenges
In this presentation, Professor David J. Gunkel will 1) demystify the technology of LLMs by providing an accessible explanation of the inner workings of these algorithms, 2) evaluate the costs and benefits of machine generated content in different areas of human communication, and 3) explore the impact these technologies are likely to have on writing and its future. In effect, the presentation asks and seeks to respond to these questions: Does an LLM application like ChatGPT write? Do these algorithms know or understand what they are saying? And if so (or if not), how will this affect and/or alter our understanding of human communication and writing? |  Large Language Models (LLM) are a recent innovation in natural language processing (NLP) technology that employ transformer architectures pre-trained on massive amounts of digital text scraped from the Internet. As a result, applications like OpenAI’s ChatGPT as well as Anthopic’s Claude, and Google’s Gemini can now generate original content that is, in many cases, indistinguishable from human written material |
4:00 PM to 6:00 PM: NIU Makers Club - Where creativity meets craft. The club is a hands-on experience that promises fun and learning in equal measure.
5:00 PM to 6:00 PM: CAUSE Social Entrepreneurship - Engage in meaningful discussions and activities focused on driving social change through entrepreneurial action.
5:00 PM to 7:00 PM: Innovation Club - Developing engaging activities like the Value Proposition Mad-Lib to introduce the early stages of the innovation process.
5:00 PM to 7:30 PM: ECON 691 - A session on mastering data tools like Python, R, and Julia.
Thursday:
9:00 AM to 11:00 AM RIPS Faculty Meet & Greet - Join the leadership team in an open house format.
4:00 PM to 7:00 PM: Indie Game Developers Organization - Creativity and collaboration with the Indie Game Developers Organization.
Friday:
12:00 PM - 2:00 PM: Vespa Mode - A collaborative project to develop a simulator for riding a vintage Vespa in virtual reality. Vespa Mode is part of the Huskieverse program.
Adam and Alex team up to assemble a prototype to be modified and augmented with a VR integration
4:30 PM: Appy Hour with Brandon Goff and the Appy People - Join the creative minds behind the Appy Hour podcast as they work on the next episode.
Saturday:
9:30 AM: Breakthrough Community Business Academy - The Breakthrough CBA covers all the essential topics about running a business, such as budgeting, marketing, bookkeeping, cash flow analyses, pricing strategies, and credit building.
Monday:
Northwestern Mutual Outreach - Parker and Veronica will connect with the student community on campus.
3:30 PM to 6:30 PM: PHHE 335 - The next Public Health Communication session offers students a chance to develop a podcast episode and dive deeper into effective communication in public health.
PHHE 335 students find their flow during a writing session
Looking Ahead:
HEALTHIER@NIU
A collaborative forum dedicated to exploring innovative solutions to complex health challenges, fostering creativity and cross-pollination of ideas. In partnership with the College of Health and Human Sciences.
Looking Back:
RHoKNIU generates ideas for the Huskie Closet
The Random Hack of Kindness brought together student teams to generate ideas to help the Huskie Closet. In the next weeks, Brandon and Cameron will help transform the checkout process from paper to digital form.
The Health Impact Team - Volunteer Management Team - and Marketing Team contributed to future Huskie Closet initiatives.
