Tribeca Hacks Cambridge: Creating Interactive Stories with Zeega

Our first Tribeca Hacks event took place in the Zeega headquarters in Cambridge, MA this past Saturday.  We had fifteen projects participating, ready to experiment with the cloud-based HTML5 platform. We had conducted a couple of Google Hangouts with everyone in advance to make sure all their assets were uploaded and they were ready to create their Zeega stories on the day. Ahmed Kabil from Zeega also took time to Skype with each participant individually to make sure they felt prepared and to answer any questions about the Zeega platform. The day began with quick introductions to the participants and their work. Then it was time to make work! After an intense day of working along a very long table we sat back with BBQ and beer and watched people’s project presentations. We were thrilled with the range of subject matter and the creativity of the approaches of all the participants, covering everything from abandoned steel factories to heartbreaking love stories. It was also really great to see that the hacking flowed both ways—the participants were helping Zeega to see how they used the platform and what they wanted it to do with it. Zeega is still in alpha so this is an important feedback process. This, for me, is the best thing about events like this: watching storytelling and technology influence each other through the amazing energy and creativity of all concerned. Tribeca Hacks is all about encouraging new kinds of collaborations and a sense of maker culture and this was a great start. Massive thanks to Jesse, Kara, James, Ahmed and the rest of the team at Zeega for hosting us (and building such a great storytelling tool!) Look out for news of future Tribeca Hacks events in the future. We’ll also send you links to the published Zeega projects soon. For now, here's a timeline recap from our Hack at Cambridge.

[Photo: Creating work at the Cambridge Hacks event]