Following the success of CodeTheCity Aberdeen earlier in the year we are delighted to announce our second event, to be held on 18th/19th October 2014 at University of Aberdeen.

Sports, Fitness and Wellbeing 

Across the city dozens of venues offer hundreds of opportunities for people of all abilities and experience to take part in sports, exercise, and other in-person activities.

At CodeTheCity we’ll investigate the challenges faced by providers and participants, and look for ways to improve availability, access and participation.

All areas of sports, fitness, and practical activity are important to us - from competitive sports clubs through to walking groups and skate parks. Other less strenuous activities which bring people together in a social context are also of interest – from meditation classes to whist drives, chess clubs or sketching groups.

Activities of these types can have a positive impact on both physical and mental health. Removing barriers to participation is an area that technology has potential to be tranformational.

At the first event one team took sporting activity event information from many sources, including inaccessible and hard to use documents, and made it accessible to all in a shared database. We hope to further this project, and start new ones.

At CodeTheCity we focus on some key areas:

• Achieving social good
• Improving local services
• Sharing skills and knowledge across disciplines
• Using and creating open data and Open Government Data (OGD)
• Open source
• Quick delivery of real results

Who should come?

We don’t just need coders - we need designers, writers, service providers, community members, anyone interested in getting involved in improving our city. The more diverse the group the better, as we have a better chance to ensure our projects are inclusive and serve everyone. If you take part in sports / fitness activities (or would like to) your experience is likely to be especially useful. 

About the first event

You can get a feel for what happened at the original CodeTheCity on our blog.

What languages / platforms do I need?

If you’re a coder then whatever languages you know, and whatever platforms you work with you’ll find a way to contribute to CodeTheCity. We have people using ruby, python, php, .net and several other systems already signed up. We expect simple HTML and CSS may be the most important skills on the day.

What do you need?

If you plan to code please bring a laptop with a suitable development environment and an extension lead is also useful if you have one available. Our room has a number of external monitors you can borrow - so bringing your cable / adaptors might be an idea too.

For non-coders just bring your enthusiasm and any tools or materials that you think will help you to contribute.

What will we provide?

• Food and beverages to keep you going during the event
• Possible ideas to get you started
• Sticky notes and pens to capture ideas
• Facilitators to help you form teams and aid your work