It looks like British Broadcasting Co. (BBC) is trying to create a geek version of Survivor or Big Brother; where 12 programmers to live on a remote tropical island for two months to do nothing but write code and Philippines is being considered as the venue for the program.
In a report by GMA News, BBC said that Philippines is one of the venues being considered for the “Come Hack With Us” project , a two-month tropical “hackathon” by 12 programmers which aims to boost the creativity of programmers taking part in the project.
BBC said Philippines is being considered because “…the islands had good power supplies and were connected to the mainland via microwave links,”. The programs aim is to create the next world changing technology by putting 12 talented programmers, with nothing to do but hack and code for two months; food, accommodation and house keeping will be taken care of, there will be no excuse for them not to come-up with the next big tech idea.
BBC is tapping Walter Heck, organiser of the Come Hack With Us hackathon to help them making this show a hit. Heck is currently looking for sponsors for the show. Candidates for the show applying will have to submit a proposal explaining what they will work on during the hackathon and they also need to complete a psychological evaluation to show they can live in harmony with other coders for the duration of the event.
The still-to-be-named Hackathon show by BBC looks like a show inspired by Hackathon that are being organized by big tech companies like Facebook, Google and those hackathon during TechCrunch Disrupt Conference.
Though sounds interesting, BBC main challenge to the show is how they can make none-tech viewers watch it, specially when those 12 programmer starts talking about programming language, platform, codes, debug and other tech jargon. I guess we just have to wait and see.
