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Frequently Asked Questions
The following FAQ is a very rough draft... please suggest updates and pose new/different questions and/or better answers here.
What is the Event Web Address?
The event web address is: http://FutureCommerce.CIVICS.com
Register for this event to participate. Registration for free on our handy form, here: http://futurecommerce.civics.com/enroll.html
This is an online and in-person event. The online event will happen through http://futurecommerce.civics.com. The in-person activities will happen in and around Kendall Sq, Cambridge, Massachusetts, centered at the MIT Media Lab and the Cambridge Innovation Center. Registered participants will receive more specific details about locations and logistics.
This event is happening from November 20 - 22, 2015. Please consult the Program Schedule for the most up to date published calendar of sessions and other activities.
[The FAQ continues after the following few paragraphs of overview and event description]
The FutureCommerce Hackathon and Symposium is a creative event for team-based generation of innovative commercial products, services, transactions, experiences, relationships and business models.
Produced by CIVICS.com at the MIT Media Lab and Cambridge Innovation Center, the program will provide participants opportunities for learning, networking, socializing with a series of optional anchor-point sessions designed to encourage advancing by inventing through provocative challenge projects, facilitated "PrototypeJam" exercises and cross-discriplinary teamups aimed at discovering new combinations and integrations of business, law & technology to breakthrough barriers and reinvent a better future. We invite participants to propose topics, speakers and projects. With the partnership of Massachusetts Legal Hackers and the ComputableLaw research team of MIT Media Lab's Human Dynamics group, a strong set of legal resources, talent and innovative new solutions will be made available for participants to leverage as part of addressing key challenges to innovation and entrepreneurship in the new economy. Participants will also have a unique opportunity to learn about and work with blockchain technologies, including but not limited to Bitcoin. Several hackathon teams and symposium speakers will explore examples and opportunities for using blockchains to solve key commercial and legal challenges. The emphasis on law and blockchains are important themes, but participants and teams are encouraged to work on any topics or projects relevant to the future of commerce.
This is a hybrid online and in-person event, built around a full MIT hackathon, providing resources for team-based projects culminating in a round of competitive judging. The hackathon includes a symposium for participants to engage with experts, top entrepreneurs and thought leaders, and provides a series of skill building, learning and social activities. The event also features opportunities for participation in PrototypeJam style facilitated design sessions working with public and private sector organizations brining challenging problems and collaborating in rapid design and prototyping charrette to develop creative solutions.
Commerce is not only about the exchange of goods and services at mass-scale but also about the interchange of ideas and information. The advent of networks connecting everything, everyone, everywhere all the time has enabled previously impossible opportunities for innovations and invention. Today, with the emergence of powerfully disruptive tools like the Blockchain, Trust Networks and Smart Contracts, the potential of an open Internet can be realized at little cost, in almost no time with a single little hack reflecting a single big idea. This event features an integrated approach to the business, legal and technical dimensions of commerce, providing mentors, tools and other resources to help teams achieve ideas and solutions the work across boundaries.
MIT Connection Science, CIVICS.com and Massachusetts Legal Hackers are convening a varied set of MIT students, creative business innovators, technical entrepreneurs, legal hackers and other to connect, brainstorm, imagine and present FutureCommerce. Join us for this unique participatory event and help re-invent the future.
Activities and projects are open to and connected with related graduate seminars at MIT Media Lab:
In keeping with the "unconference" approach of this event, any registered participant can propose a session. To propose a hacking session or a discussion session, just use the FutureCommerce Hackathon Project Proposal Form at: http://futurecommerce.civics.com/propose.html
A hacking session is for two or more registered participants to collaborate on a project to built something. Hacking sessions are intended to produce some output, whether a prototype app, a publishable draft article or other artifact. The product that results from a hacking session will be added to the event gallery and presented at the closing session for general discussion and feedback. Every team collaborating on projects will have opportunities to make a project presentation to a panel of judges and all registered participants for feedback. Winners, and others still present at the conclusion of the event, can become a contender for election as King or Queen of the 2016 Second Annual CodeProm and Mayoral Jubilee.
A discussion sessions is for two or more registered participants to talk about a topic related to the event and of mutual interest. Discussion sessions are intended to shed light and may also create heat, whether due to competing ideas, enthusiastically harmonious ideas, or just from a bout of fun banter. One or more participants in every discussion session will have opportunities to report out for broader feedback throughout the event.
The organizers will schedule one or more hangout based "pitch" sessions with QnA for registered participants in the week before this event when you can describe your proposed hacking project or discussion session and address any questions or comments. Archives of these Hangout sessions are be automatically archived on YouTube and will be available on our playlists as well as curated on our event site to assist people in choosing sessions throughout the event and as part of the resource collection for each project.
Check back for updates on this, and share your views on how it should be done. At this point, the concept is that when a proposed session garners two or more registered participants it will change state to "active" instead of "proposed". By default, the participant that originally proposed an active session is expected to select one or more time slots when the session will take place.
Some sessions may be intended to occur over several or every available time slot, such as a project-focused series of hacking sessions conducted by the same team for the purpose of winning a prize and/or solving a problem. Some sessions are intended to be one time events, such as a tutorial or question and answer style discussion session. Participants in some discussion sessions may choose to schedule multiple time slots to continue or advance the conversation.