Target audience: ADM+S members

When: Thursday 5 - Friday 6 December 2024

Where: in person and online. In-person at The Studio, Melbourne Connect, University of Melbourne.

ADM+S Hackathon 2024: Recommender Systems for Public Service Media

This year’s hackathon comes from a partnership with the ABC to develop automated recommender systems that incorporate public service news values. Like other media outlets, the ABC is turning to recommender systems to help both editors and users navigate a sea of content. Participants will face a double challenge: how to develop automated approaches to assessing the public service news value of individual news stories, and relatedly, how to assess the extent to which a sequence of recommendations of content including news, music, and video reflects these values. Whereas a commercial algorithm might keep feeding users content similar to what they have read, listened to, or watched, a public service algorithm would need to take into consideration the extent to which the content reflected the goal of providing users with a rich array of diverse, entertaining, and informative content. The hackathon will start with a panel discussion of the role played by automation in public service media, and our ABC partners will serve as judges. The nature of the challenge lends itself to participation from anyone interested in considering how automated systems might provide a public service alternative to commercial algorithms. As in the past, the hackathon will incorporate interdisciplinary teams, bringing together participants interested in the economic, cultural, and political role of media content with theories of public service media and technical expertise in recommender systems.

Details:

When: Dec. 5-6, 2024

Where: In person and online. In person location is The Studio, Melbourne Connect, University of Melbourne.

Who: All ADM+S members are invited to participate, no previous experience necessary, no technical experience necessary either. We are looking for team participants, team mentors/leaders, and roving mentors.

How: Please register your interest by completing this registration and at check-out nominate whether you will be participating in person or online. Participants will be provided with a “hack pack” two weeks prior to the hackathon. The pack will include background research on recommender systems, as well as some data and information on recent approaches to evaluating public service news content.

Interstate applicants: ADM+S research training has earmarked several travel bursaries to enable our interstate ADM+S students and ECR members to travel to participate in person. These bursaries are up to a maximum of $1,000 to contribute to return economy airfares, accommodation, and ground transportation. Please select travel bursary in the check-out questions in the registration, and we will review each applicant to ensure a spread across nodes/locations.

Teams: Participants are welcome to nominate other team members in advance of the Hackathon, these nominations will be considered but not guaranteed. Teams will be comprised of multi-disciplinary research background, cross-nodal and varied in experience level (students and researchers). Teams will be a maximum of 6 people. Research Training Manager Sally Storey will connect with all registered participants in the lead-up to the hackathon to get nominations.

Prizes:

Judges Prize:
Project support funds up to $5,000
The winning team can take their project research to the next iteration – research support funds can be used to develop ideas and research related to the Hackathon. This may be used for; travel to collaborate with your fellow teammates, travel to collaborate or liaise with industry or Partner Organisations or other institutions, RA support to research and document findings or to aid in the development of a project proposal for future funding. The team will be provided with an ADM+S researcher (CI or AI) to act as a mentor to guide them through ideation and next steps.
Team members must provide ADM+S COO Nicholas Walsh a summary of proposed activities with budget line items for approval. Team members can opt-in to further develop their project and idea.

Runner up Prize:
Project support funds up to $3,000
The runner up team can take their project research to the next iteration – research support funds can be used to develop ideas and research related to the Hackathon. This may be used for; travel to collaborate with your fellow teammates, travel to collaborate or liaise with industry or Partner Organisations or other institutions, RA support to research and document findings or to aid in the development of a project proposal for future funding. The team will be provided with an ADM+S researcher (CI or AI) to act as a mentor to guide them through ideation and next steps.
Team members must provide ADM+S COO Nicholas Walsh a summary of proposed activities with budget line items for approval. Team members can opt-in to further develop their project and idea.

Any questions can be directed to Manager, Research Training and Development Sally Storey.