BBC News Labs University Challenge: Voice user interfaces

Are you a student studying journalism or computing?

Passionate about using new technologies for storytelling?

Eager to grow your network of media technologists?

Keen to learn new skills with newsroom engineers, developers and journalists?

BBC News Labs is holding a University Challenge hackathon in London to explore new interactions for voice devices such as Google Home and Amazon Echo. If you fit the description, we hope you’ll join us!

The event will be held on Monday 29 January and Tuesday 30 January at the BBC. Please note that you must be able to attend the full two days to register.

How it works

Interested students are invited to register individually for either “Journalist/Editorial” or “Computing/Engineering” tickets depending on their skills. When the registration period closes, we will select 20 students from each registration group and form multi-skilled teams from a mix of academic institutions.

If selected, you will be put in contact with the other members of your team to begin generating ideas for your prototype.

News Labs will host an open web chat to discuss recommended technologies and answer questions about the Challenge in the week before the event. Labbers will also be available to provide support during the hackathon.

Students will spend two days creating a prototype and presentation before pitching their ideas to a panel of judges at the end of the second day.

***Please note: in order to create multi-skilled teams from a mix of universities, and due to space concerns, not every student who registers may be selected to participate. We hope to accommodate as many interested students as possible.***

The Challenge

We’re looking for innovative audience-facing experiences — and love to be surprised!

While judges will select a winner of the hackathon, the primary nature of the event is for networking and collaboration. We want to introduce you to new technologies and journalism formats, and facilitate the exchange of ideas across disciplines and universities.

If you have any questions, please email us at newslabs@bbc.co.uk.

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