Going to hacks forces you to develop something awesome and show it off at the end. If you get distracted and make something that sucks, you pretty much embarrass yourself in front of all the other 1337 developers, so when you do these hacks you have to make sure that doesn’t happen.

In this session I will be sharing all of my experiences of attending hacks and jams around the UK and Europe. Most of my hacks are gaming focussed and I will discuss what, why and how I built each hackathon with live demos and what I learnt from that Hack. I will also discuss the good and bad points of the hacks and how I powered through them with tips, tricks and best practices when developing in time constraints.

Some of the hackathons I will discuss include Digital Sizzle 6, ExplayUK Game Jam, Digital Shoreditch Scareathon, Angel Hack, Rewired State: Parliament Hack, Kings of Code: Hack Battle and Code Club Raspberry Pi Hack.

Questions answered :
Why do Hackathons
What you can learn from Hackathons
Who can be involved in Hackathons
Why does Hackathons benefit companies
How to approach a Hackathon
Tips on Surviving a Hackathon

Having interviewed 18 mobile entrepreneurs from across the globe for Mad Men of Mobile, we will look at what traits the entrepreneurs share and what advice they offered for those starting out in the industry.

Questions answered :
What does it take to be successful in mobile?

If you plan to make games you have to understand what you are getting into. There is a Zombie Apocalypse going on right now with countless bright intelligent developers killed off. Can you avoid becoming one of the casualties or are you already one of the Living Dead?

Questions answered :
This session will look at the latest techniques of integrated marketing for games and apps promotions but told in a humourous way to help you survive the Zombie Apocalypse

The journey to launching FootballAlbum

Questions Answered:
The importance of insights
Staying on track. Evolving the product, not goals

Join us for our discussion on entertainment startups. We’ll discuss what are the top startups in movies, music, TV, and games, including: How to acquire or license content for your site or app, involving users, and marketing and social media. Several case studies will be featured from successful startups.

Questions Answered:
- What are the entertainment startups in London
- What are the trends for entertainment startups (e.g. mobile, social, geolocation, etc)
- How can I get started if I have an entertainment startup idea?

This is a talk about assistive technologies which make video games more accessible for people who have survived an acquired brain injury (ABI). As medical care improves, an increasing number of people survive ABI. Video games have been shown to provide therapeutic benefits in many medical contexts, and rehabilitation for ABI survivors has been shown to be facilitated by playing some types of video game. Therefore, technologies which improve the accessibility of games have the potential to bring a form of therapy to a larger group of people who may benefit. Hardware technologies which may make games more accessible for brain injury survivors are considered. These include brain-computer interfaces, head and eye tracking, and mouth controllers. Complementing these devices, game developers should incorporate accessibility features into their games during the development process. The dissemination of best practice guidelines among game development practitioners would improve accessibility and thus the therapeutic potential of future games.

Questions Answered:
This session is intended to raise awareness of technologies and techniques which can be used by developers to make their software more accessible.

The power of mobile devices and the growth of smart devices have made gaming on these devices more popular. The thing is, there are a lot of devices like the Apple’s iPhone, Samsung’s Galaxy, Google’s Nexus and now the BlackBerry 10.

As game developers and designers we want to build for all platforms and devices, but we might have to learn and build games with many different frameworks and different languages, then maintain each version separately, which is just a lot of work for a game developer.

This is where cross platform comes in, 1 language, 1 framework and 1 source base compiled to many devices. The platform I will be sharing and showing will be Adobe AIR and the Starling Framework. I will show you how easy it is to build a simple 2D game for an iPhone and an Android device.

After we have learnt the basics, we may even turn this in to a little Game Hack, where you can build your own game and run it on a mobile device.

Questions Answered:
How to build games for multiple devices and platforms?
How to compile Adobe AIR built games on to mobile?
How to use the Starling Framework to build mobile games?

It sounds odd but video games are a great entry point for teaching computer science. Open the bonnet of any video game and you will find finely tuned mechanics working together to produce great experiences and of course fun. Analyzing those mechanics using Joris Dormans’ "Machinations" diagram tool is a very iterative, motivating, rewarding and fun way to improve analytical and logical thinking, math skills and to start coding without having to write a single line of code. It also turns students into game designers – and who doesn’t want to be one?

This is how it works:

Step 1: Students chose the game they want to analyze. They play it intensively and have fun.

Step 2: Students analyze the game using the "Machinations" tool to recreate its mechanics. The result is a playable but abstract version of the original game.

More information about Machinations here: http://www.kisslat.com/machinations-lets-get-started/

Disclaimer: I am a game designer, not a qualified teacher. The goal of my talk is not to present a final concept of how to make computer science classes fun, but to present an idea that might be worth turning into a great teaching tool.

Questions Answered:
How to teach the basics of coding in a fun way?

How to improve analytical and logical thinking, math skills, team work by playing and analyzing video games?

How to turn any student into a game designer?