Ideas Into Apps

How can you leverage the strength of avid readers, mobile developers and women - and men, too, of course - with bright ideas and turn it into something big? For Finnish magazine publisher Bonnier Publications Oy, the answer is a weekend-long hackathon: the Bonnier Dev Camp. Set for November 25-27, the core of the weekend will be teams building mobile apps inspired by the magazines Olivia, Divaani and Evita. Along with the app building, there will be presentations on mobile design, trends in mobile media as well as shorter talks and workshops on development in technology, mobile development for newcomers, and more.

"The idea for the event came last spring when I was having coffee with CEO Marjaana Toiminen," says Krista Kauppinen, project manager for the event and producer of the interior design blogsite Divaaniblogit.fi and social media for Bonnier Publications Oy. "Bonnier Dev Camp was inspired by many different hackathon events organized in the Helsinki area, the Nordics and the Baltics and Silicon Valley, events such as Garage 48 and Rails Girls. In general, events which bring together people, especially women, from different backgrounds who have an interest in tech, even if they don't have much experience. Events that are places to build teams and prototypes to quickly test ideas, without forgetting to have fun along the way."

The Bonnier Dev Camp is open to mobile developers on all platforms, user interface and graphic designers, as well as what Kauppinen calls visionaries: fans of the magazine or women who have ideas for fun or useful lifestyle apps they want to come to life. Along with Kauppinen, the team includes Mike Bradshaw, organizer behind the developer event Mobile Dev Camp and User Interface and Experience Designer Maria Kulse who works at Futurice and Nur Sah Ketene, web developer with experience in organizing tech events.

"The goal of the event is to bring people together, promote the magazines and see what comes out of the mix," says Kauppinen. "It's really a playground for ideas, with experienced mobile developers on hand as coaches and the magazines serving as inspiration, not only in regards to their themes but also the visual language used."

Bonnier Publications Oy has already produced two iPhones apps - shopping apps designed for Olivia and Divaani readers. These were outsourced to an established mobile development house. And there is an interest to do more in mobile, but in a new way, says Kauppinen.

"This is a new approach for a publishing house to take with a 'fuzzy front-end' of product development - bringing in designers, developers and users from an early stage," says Kauppinen. "We want to provide a platform for ideas to develop, people to learn and teams to form. The hackathon will end in a demo and the most promising application prototypes will be rewarded. If some of the ideas that evolve are interesting and promising from Bonnier Publications Oy's point of view, it's possible that the team behind the prototype could be hired to take it further."

You can read more about the Bonnier Dev Camp and find about signing up at the Bonnierdevcamp.fi or on Facebook. Or follow it all on Twitter.