#lifehack weekend

A couple of weekends ago we had our first experience running a residential hui – all of a sudden we spend not just two very intense days with the Lifehack participants, but evenings and nights as well. Paired with a couple of intense workout sessions (Zumba and BoxFit), along with children running amidst the people working on behalf of community projects, it's safe to say that Lifehack Kaitaia was one of a kind in 2014.

Wonderfully courageous project holders made their projects available for us to work on. Traveling from as far as Auckland & Wellington, both participants and project holders showed determination and community spirit. From suicide prevention and mental health resources to creative arts, we had a range of proactive and reactive initiatives when it comes to our young people’s wellbeing.

Seeing the way the rangatahi of the Far North have a gift for the creative and technical gab was astonishing. From writing waiatas in a single afternoon, to seeing fully edited movies come to to life after just a day's experience in iMovie was truly inspirational, and demonstrates the determination and tutu (hands-on) attitude that was so all-encompassing.

John Carter, the local mayor joined us for Sunday presentations. Refreshingly down-to-earth, John talked about the importance of culture, and how important it is to keep it alive and see Maori and Pakeha work alongside one another to achieve the best for the country and its people. In a short speech, John talked about his responsibility of representing the people of the Far North, and in an unexpected move supplied his business card to project holders with the advice to give him a call should they get stuck when it comes to their project.

In no particular order, here are some things that were created over the weekend:

- A business plan and a stakeholder map for Project Opportunity, along with a media contact sheet

- User personas, a rails app, and physical prototypes for a 'Coping Kete' for Engage Aotearoa

- A new project name, movie, business plan, logo and vision for Te Ao Oro Toi

- A marketing strategy, engagement plan, user survey, video and stakeholder map for H.Y.P.E.

Check out the photos from the weekend here:

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Post by Lifehack HQ.

You can also see our short photo journal here.

When I first came to visit Northland a couple of months ago, one of the youth workers told to us about the 'systematic lack of hope' that affected young people in the region. Having witnessed this weekend of determination, hard work, creative energy and strong community spirit, I am looking forward to seeing this attitude shift towards the positive. Please help us spread the word about these amazing causes.

Special thanks to Te Kura Kaupapa Maori o Pukemiro in Kaitaia for hosting us, and Te Hiku Media for filming the event.

Welcome to our latest LIFEHACK Hump Day Roundup, where we bring you some quick links and inspiration from around the web focused on Social Innovation, Wellbeing Research, Techspiration & Startup News. You can contribute by getting in touch with LIFEHACK if there’s something you think we should include!

Techspiration: Check out this very excellent Wellington-based project to enable people who’re depressed to reach out for help when things get bad. It’s called Code Blue, and it’s run by the excellent people who’re also behind other tech projects like GoalPost which aims to help people quit smoking. They’ve currently got a crowdfunding campaign happening, so drop by and help them hit their targets.

Learn: Why metrics matter for new projects + ventures and how to do them well by KISS Metrics. We love this as it’s a great beginner’s guide to data analytics and the article gives a great guide to getting started.

Insight: Why positive psychology is disrupting Psychotherapy, the role technology is playing in it? This article outlines an important growing focus on shifting the focus from mental illness to mental wellness, and nicely explains how a cocktail of drugs isn’t the only way to do that.

Event: Southland - we’re coming your way soon, and Anna Guenther has 10 reasons she thinks you should be there on May 16th. Check out the blog.

Startup News: Sometimes you need a little inspiration and explanation about how other startups bootstrap their ventures to break even (running lean and reinvesting profits rather than taking on investment). This is a great article about how a startup team managed to work their way to $25k in revenue in 3 months with a good idea, rigorous testing and a prototype product which consisted of a Wufoo form and Mailchimp.

48 HOURS OF CREATIVITY ROCKS CHRISTCHURCH

The LIFEHACK Weekends of 2014 took flight at the beginning of March with the aim of supporting local innovators and wellbeing causes by putting the call out to dreamers, doers and thinkers to unleash their skills on the projects for a weekend.

The line up included a diverse range of skills, backgrounds and talents, from illustrators to vets, developers to walking music encyclopaedias!

Our first local cause was championed by Bridie Chetwin-Kelly who had a vision for how music could connect young males in New Zealand to enable better conversations and shift their mood through uplifting music.

Our second local cause was led by Zhiyan Basharati of Summerz End Youthfest who were on a mission to create an engaging experience for a wide variety of Christchurch's young people to come together and celebrate their cultures through music, dance, skating and more.

Here's what happened through the weekend:

We were delighted at the creative energy unleashed over the weekend. Both projects got some great new digital assets (like websites and posters) as well as a huge amount of connections, publicity and learnings about new & collaborative ways to work.

You can keep in touch with Bridie's project : Brozac

Also make sure you check out Summerz End Youthfest which is happening on 5 April.

Photo Link

OUR LEARNINGS

Put the call out, and it will be answered - Christchurch really rose to the invitation to support the innovators!

It's amazing what you can build in a weekend.

Interviewing real customers/users is vital to shaping a good idea into a great one.

There's some bright minds in NZ and if we can give them the knowledge and a platform to work together, great things can happen for youth wellbeing (watch this space!).

FUTURE EVENTS

We're planning more weekends around the country, so keep an eye on our website for events in your area and sign up to the newsletter.

Te Waipounamu is getting a second dose of Lifehacking, straight off the back of the Christchurch weekend!

SAVE THE DATE: 29 & 30 March

That's right, in less than a month, we'll be landing at Tai Poutini Polytechnic in Greymouth | Māwhera for another festival of creativity.

So, whether you're a Dreamer, a Maker or a Doer, a Thinker or a Change Maker, we want you to join us to create tools and solutions for some very awesome local causes.

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We're constantly asked 'How do I develop an app?' or 'How can I build a website?' by people who have fantastic ideas for Wellbeing technology but don't know any developers.

With the explosion of mobile & desktop tech, the recognition that technology is integrated into our lives is increasing, and people are responding by considering how we can use it as a tool for improving our lives.

Here at LIFEHACK we're committed to catalysing inspiring tech wellness projects, so it's about time we give those of you who would like to get into creating technology a crash course in doing it yourself (just like the founder of Instagram).

Teach Yourself To Code #1 - Treehouse

"Our mission is to bring affordable Technology education to people everywhere, in order to help them achieve their dreams and change the world."

Treehouse creates learning experiences which are known as "Tracks" - such as Web Design, Rails, iOS and Android. Through video tutorials and interactive quizzes and practical coding challenges, you learn your way through badges and awards to Treehouse qualifications.

Treehouse costs a monthly subscription which you can put on hold any time.

Focused on beginners to intermediate audience.

Teach Yourself To Code #2 - CodeAcademy

"Learn to code interactively, for free. People all over the world are learning with Codecademy."

Whether you want to learn about HTML/CSS to build a responsive website, Python or Ruby to build a web app - CodeAcademy is an online space that enables you to do just that.

Focused on intermediate to advanced audience.

Teach Yourself To Code #3 - Enspiral Dev Academy

"DEV ACADEMY is an apprenticeship on steroids. You learned to ride a bike by getting on the bike, right? Same here. We focus on hands-on learning over old-school lectures. From day one, you’ll dig in and start coding. It’s the only way to learn."

If you're looking to learn Ruby on Rails or .NET and wanting to find a job straight out of the course, this might just be the intensive offline program for you. 9 weeks in Wellington will have you supported and pushed by mentors and teachers, and 'ready for your first developer position'.

Dev Academy comes at a cost of $11k, but there's also scholarships available, and $4k cash back if you get hired by one of the partner companies (some of NZ's leading companies).

Focused on beginner to advanced audience.

*full disclosure: we are good friends with the founders of Dev Academy*

Teach Yourself To Code #4 - Yoobee Short Courses

"Yoobee School of Design offers a variety of day, evening and weekend short courses and master classes throughout the year. They are practical, relevant and affordable; and designed to develop new skills for personal or professional development."

Yoobee operates in Auckland, Wellington & Christchurch and runs short courses & bootcamps which could give you a grounding in web design, front end development and more.

The courses also cost (dependent on region and course).

Focused on beginner to intermediate

Teach Yourself To Code #5 - Do You Really Need To Code?

Often people who tell us they need a developer or need to learn themselves are putting the cart before the horse. We've repeatedly heard people suggest that they can't move their project forward without someone to develop their app - "I know everything it needs to do, I just need someone to develop it, but all the quotes are too expensive". 

When we hear that, 99 times out of 100 we find that the person hasn't tested the idea or validated it in any way - they're jumping straight to code. We highly recommend better validation before you even touch the code side of things, as once you start building your app or game you'll be investing time, money and energy into something and will be loathed to changes things if your assumptions are proved wrong. A more nimble approach to development of your technology idea is to follow a lean startup approach. Get in touch to find out more.

Focused on beginner to advanced

LIFEHACK is coming to Christchurch on 28 February to unleash some creativity!

We're soon to announce our full events calendar for the year which will take us beyond the main centres for the first time, but there's so many creative responses bubbling up in the garden city that we couldn't help but start the year there.

Our all-new weekend event format is making LIFEHACK even more engaging this year as we're going to be focusing 48 hours of human energy on a small number of charity or social venture projects which are addressing youth wellbeing, locally. Challenges will be announced soon!

In the meantime if you want a taste of what it's like to make meaningful change over a weekend, bring your thinking caps, a bucketful of enthusiasm and we promise you'll leave with a spring in your step!

We only have space for 30 people at this LIFEHACK Weekend, so apply for an invite now!

It’s been a little over nine months since I was part of the Lifehack weekend in Auckland. We were all given one task for the weekend - to come with creative and innovative technological solutions to tackle youth mental illness especially depression/social isolation. This was a social issue I am really passionate about because of my background in public health and the appalling rates of youth suicide Aotearoa has compared to other OECD countries.

It was an intense weekend but a very productive and fantastic one. I met some amazing people from all walks of life who are passionate about social change and using technology to achieve that. There were some fantastic ideas and some awesome concepts that came out of the weekend. It gave me a real hope that there are some amazing people who are passionate about the same things I am and that we are all fighting for some real social change in our own worlds. Lifehack just happened to find all these fabulous people and connect us so that we can put our ideas together to fight for the same cause.

Since Lifehack, I am continuing the fight for social change by working in the NGO/NFP sector with a focus on women and young people. I was humbled and very proud to be recognised for the work I do in the form of a nomination for the Westpac’s Women of Influence Awards under the Emerging Leader category. I was even more excited and humbled when I was one of five young women finalists in that category. You can read more here about why I was one of finalists.

The awards ceremony was great, I got to mix and mingle with some impressive and truly inspirational women from all walks of life. This includes one amazing woman I had the pleasure of meeting at Lifehack, Dr. Michelle Dickinson who was nominated under the Innovation/Science category.

Even though I did not win, I had the pleasure of meeting and connecting with women and men who are passionate about women’s empowerment and leadership. As I have said many times before I do all my work not for the awards or the recognition, I do them because of my passion for the empowerment of women and young people. Being a finalist meant that the organisations I am involved with got some recognition of the work they do and for that I am grateful. I was also very appreciative for all the aroha (love) and support I got during the Women of Influence Awards.

2013 was a great year and it all started off by making some great connections at Lifehack. 2014 is already off to a great start and I am hoping to do more amazing things and go on some great adventures this year. I am off to New York in March to attend the UN Commission on the Status of Women, which is really exciting, and I bet I will be back in Aotearoa with a recharged energy to do more amazing things!!

If you want to follow my adventures and the things I get up to or you just want to connect with me, you can do so via twitter: @NiveSharat

Start Your Engines, we're returning to Christchurch!

We're very excited to announce we'll be announcing our full year's event calendar soon, but in the meantime here's a quick note to let those of you in the Garden City know we'll be coming your way first!

Lifehack Weekend Events have got an exciting new format this year, focused on a great creative experience in your home towns, working with excellent local projects at the weekends to bring your skills, passion and enthusiasm to bear on local challenges.

We're also focusing on helping Lifehackers learn new skills and working in new ways. From experience, we can assure you it will be a bundle of fun - kinda like a house party when cool projects get built...

So, save the date - we'll be opening applications very soon!