Iowa BIG North hosts annual ‘hack-a-thon’

By James Grob, jgrob@charlescitypress.com

About 120 students from seven area school districts gathered in Charles City on Wednesday to hack on some of the issues that are hacking on them.

Iowa BIG North hosted its annual hack-a-thon on Wednesday at the IBN headquarters at the North Grand Building. The event brings together students who are interested in the program and gives them a chance to experience the IBN model in one day.

“They bring different problems from different communities and different districts, and they’re all trying to solve them together,” said IBN Director Donna Forsyth. “We ask what bugs them. What do they want to make a difference with?”

Approximately 15 different groups were “hacking on” different issues that they want to make a change with on Wednesday, and no issues were too big or too small.

Students set their sights on sweeping issues like reviving the dwindling worldwide bee population or improving Iowa’s polluted waterways, all the way down to more local problems, like improving the safety of the high school parking lot.

Charles City senior Olivia Wolfe led the hack-a-thon this year.

“It’s our way at Iowa Big North of giving the students a taste of what it’s like to be in our program,” Wolfe said. “We give them a day to collaborate with people from other schools. They find out what they’re passionate about, and find out if there are people at nearby schools who have that same passion.”

Iowa BIG North — “BIG” is an acronym for “Big Ideas Group” — is a coalition of students from seven regional high schools who are pushed to make connections with local businesses that each have a problem to solve. The group also undertakes internal, student-driven initiatives.

School districts involved are Charles City, New Hampton, Osage, Rudd-Rockford-Marble Rock, Turkey Valley, North Butler and Riceville. The program was inspired by Iowa BIG in Cedar Rapids.

“Today, we’re asking them, ‘what are you willing to work on in the evening or on the weekend?’” Forsyth said. “It’s not about a grade, it’s not about money. It’s about something that bothers you enough to make a change.”

Forsyth said that in the past, they’ve found that some of these initiatives launched at the hack-a-thon will continue on next year in the fall.

“They have a very limited time today, so they just get started,” Forsyth said. “It’s passion-driven and completely student-driven. That’s what keeps kids working on it in the evening or on the weekend. They’re busy, sometimes, even throughout the summer.”

Wolfe said that the hope is that the students who really enjoyed the experience will put it on their schedule next year.

“It’s sort of a recruiting gig, but it’s a fun day,” Wolfe said.

Forsyth said that the interested students need to experience IBN hands-on to be certain that the program is something they want to be involved with.

“They’ve heard about Iowa BIG North, but they really don’t know what it is,” she said. “It’s really difficult to have a sit-down conversation and truly explain to them what it is. They have to experience it.”