DroneHack brings together journalists, editors, storytellers, newsrooms, coders, developers and engineers to create innovative drone concepts for journalism. The Hack will design, test and fly drones that explore new ways to capture data. These include immersive video, 3D imagery and sensor data. Our hackers will hear from a range of drone journalists and innovators, and test their drones at the end of the challenge.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are increasingly used by a range of media creators. Although subject to strict aviation regulations, users are capitalising their ability to create aerial shots more cheaply than alternative methods. In light of this increasing uptake, DroneHack: Journalism hopes to move UAVs beyond simple image-capture, and explores the unique media and journalistic opportunities drones can offer.

Hosted by the University of Central Lancashire’s (UCLan) Civic Drone Centre and Trinity Mirror, and bringing together a range of media partners, including Journalism.co.uk, the one-day workshop's core aim is to design, build and fly drones that create new ways to capture stories.

Who can sign up?

The hack is open to all levels of technical expertise and experience - from novice to flying/engineering ace - and participants will be provided with all the tools, parts and equipment needed to make a drone from scratch. Experienced ‘drone doctors’ will be on hand throughout the day to troubleshoot any snags and hiccups and teach the basics of flying a drone.

DroneHack teams will be formed on the day to ensure a range of skills is present in each group. Participants are encouraged to sign up individually or register a pre-existing and fully-formed group.

How do I get to the Hack?

We’re holding the DroneHack at The Sharp Project in Manchester. There’s plenty of travel info available on their website.

We’re looking forward to seeing you there!

Confirmed Speakers

Ben Kreimer - Journalism Technologist

Ben Kreimer is a journalism technologist and former beta fellow for BuzzFeed’s Open Lab Fellowship. He’s also an adviser with the Drone Journalism Lab and Kenya based African SkyCAM.

Kreimer explores the use of drones and open-source hardware sensor platforms as new tools for gathering data and telling stories. His drone work focuses on exposing and telling stories in new ways through the unique perspectives and visual experiences that only drones can provide. Recently he has been using drones and aerial imagery to turn real world landscapes and structures into immersive three-dimensional environments for publishing and sharing online.

Kreimer has worked with academic institutions and media organizations including Columbia’s Tow Center for Digital Journalism, the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda (India), the University of Central Lancashire’s Media Innovation Studio and Civic Drone Centre (U.K.), CCTV Africa, the Times of India, VICE News, The Star (Kenya), the African

Wildlife Foundation, Kenya Tourism Board, and the Antiochia ad Cragum Archaeological Research Project in Turkey.

Dr David Dunkley Gyimah – artist-technologist

Dr David Dunkley Gyimah is a J-Lab Knight Batten innovation in journalism winner, artist-in-residence at the South Bank centre and journalism-academic pioneering research into cinema journalism - an upgrade to videojournalism.

Dr Dunkley Gyimah sees “art and technology – a new unity” (a Bauhaus principle) as a guide to his work. As an applied Chemistry grad, he uses artistic practices to shape his work with drones.

David’s 28-years media career includes working for BBC Newsnight, Channel 4 News, ABC News in South Africa, and ad agencies/dotcoms. His research work in Cinema Journalism has led to speaking at NewsXChange, SXSW, Sheffield Docs and ONA New York, as well as consulting and working around the world in China, Cairo, Lebanon and Ghana, where he lived for 8 years. David currently leads a new course starting in 2017, Digital Interactive Story telling LAB at the University of Westminster which experiments with emerging interstices of storytelling and interactive forms. He publishes viewmagazine.tv

Dickens Olewe

Dickens Olewe is a Kenyan journalist. He was the digital lead at the Star Publications in Kenya where he set up the newspaper’s digital department. Olewe is the founder of African skyCAM, the continent's first drone journalism project, which was one of the winners of the inaugural African News Innovation Challenge in 2012. He was a 2015 John S. Knight journalism fellow at Stanford University. During his fellowship he organised a drone journalism conference which brought together consumer drone manufacturers including 3D Robotics and DJI Phantom, journalists and activist to discuss trends in the industry, best examples of storytelling and drone regulation in the US and around the world. Olewe’s interest is in using new technology for storytelling and integrating citizen journalists in the news process. Olewe has been invited to speak on a range of topics including drone journalism at several media events and conferences internationally. He currently works for BBC Africa's online team and is based in London.

Sally French

Sally French is a journalist reporting on drones for The Wall Street Journal's MarketWatch. Sally first got interested in drones when she served as a photographer and producer at the Missouri School of Journalism’s drone journalism program in its inaugural year. The first “drone journalism” she did was produce a video for Harvest Public Media in which footage from a drone documents a prairie fire. She has also spoken at South by Southwest (SXSW) and the Harvard Business School and Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences’ “Engineering + Entrepreneurship Making Robotics Fly” event. Sally was also named one of Fortune Magazine’s “4 top women shaping the drone industry.

Steven Flynn

Steven Flynn is an Emmy Award winning Filmmaker: Producer, Director, Director of Photography, Editor, and drone pilot. With a background in electronics and photography he honed his skill both as a photographer and editor, forming his own post-production company in 1996. Among his past clients are PBS, DISCOVERY, TRAVEL CHANNEL, HGTV, PAISLEY PARK. He moved to Ireland for a short period in 2002 and worked as a freelance editor for his first clients in Europe and returned to the US in 2003 only to relocate to Ireland again in 2012 and co-found Aerial Filming Ireland. In 2015 he pitched another business idea to the National Digital Resource Centre in Dublin, and is currently the CEO of Skytango™ Ltd.

John Mills - Media Innovation Studio, UClan

Based at the Media Innovation Studio at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan), John’s research activity spans journalism, drone journalism, the Internet of Things, augmented paper, mobile journalism, wearables, HCI and innovation theory. Since moving into academia from online journalism and content creation, he has worked on projects spanning citizen journalism, disruptive and emergent technologies, design, connected objects and newsroom organisation.

In recent years his research has increasingly moved into the realm of drone journalism and the Internet of Things, and how news organisations can utilise physical-digital platforms.

Darren Ansell - Engineering Innovation Centre, UCLan

Darren Ansell has been the Space and Aerospace Engineering Lead in the School of Computing, Engineering and Physical Sciences, University of Central Lancashire since September 2012. At UCLan Darren is leading a number of collaborative research projects with industry partners, including the Civic Drone Centre and 'GAMMA' (Growing Autonomous Mission Management Applications programme) which is developing autonomous, intelligent software for the aerospace and nuclear industries.

His research interests include autonomous and intelligent systems and he previously worked in industry at BAE Systems in research management and research and development roles, specialising in Mission Systems and Autonomy. At BAE Systems he was the Engineering lead for the ASTRAEA programme which developed UAV technology to support the integration of unmanned platforms into UK airspace, where he led the development of 'Sense and Avoid' collision avoidance technology, autonomy and decision making software and image processing research.