Hacked: Festival to celebrate “disruptive innovation” in Vancouver

Vancouver is home to various festivals for art, film, music, video games, and technology. Consider Hacked: Festival all of the above.

Anne-Marie Enns, one of three festival producers, told the Georgia Straight that Hacked is a “disruptive innovation festival”.

“We wanted to bring something to Vancouver that they hadn’t seen before,” Enns said over the phone. “So we wanted to bring something that was full of innovation, great new technologies, 3-D printing, robotics, art installations, great arcade games, interactive exhibits, a storefront, pop-up hackspaces. So it is a lot of different things, but they’re all interconnected into an amazing, innovative festival that we thought we would try out in Vancouver this summer.”

Between August 11 and 14, the inaugural Hacked will take place at the Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre in Yaletown. Organizers are expecting hundreds of people to attend.

(Update [July 28]: Organizers have postponed Hacked: Festival until 2015.)

The festival will feature a conference, workshops, exhibits, a market, an arcade, a film night, parties, and more. A tech crawl will highlight some of the city’s companies.

A limited number of early bird passes are on sale for $120 via Picatic. Pass prices will rise to $200 and $500 as the event approaches.

“But we’re trying to make it really accessible for people, so we’re offering a number of different levels for it to make it attainable,” Enns said.

Hacked is calling for proposals from prospective speakers and workshop leaders. Topics of interest to the organizers include cryptocurrencies, drones, the Internet of things, journalism, transportation, and wearables.

According to Enns, Hacked is for “anyone that’s interested in innovation”, whether it’s biohacking or game design or robotics.

“We expect to have hackers, developers, the startup entrepreneurship community, people interested in art and music, the general public that’s interested in technology,” Enns said. “We have some international delegations coming in. So all kinds of people. It really extends itself from the highest technologist down to the regular person who just thinks 3-D printing is really cool.”