Hope Book is the winning hack from the 2012 Culture Code event in Newcastle upon Tyne. Together with James Rutherford, Colin Oakley and Amy Golding, Jeremiah developed a website to explore issues of child poverty by placing you within, a day in the life of a 12 year old girl called Hope.
On the day of the Hack, Jeremiah delivered a talk called ‘Why Data Sucks’, focussed on encouraging developers to do more with their data than just visualise it. Instead, he encouraged them to try to tell stories or invoke emotion from their viewers. So accordingly, Jeremiah’s team in the Hack decided that they wanted to use gaming and narrative to create their data hack.
Created in less than 24 hours, hope book was a mock Facebook page for a character called Hope, who posted updates based on thoughts and opinions gathered from real Young People living in child poverty. Occasionally, Hope would share photo albums, including photos taken by local young people of their community. Statistical data was turned into games such as a platform game based on a column chart of poverty levels.
The project aimed to push boundaries and we believe it did. It has the potential to change opinions and create impact. We will continue to support Children’s North East as they look into opportunities to utilise Hope Book in their campaigns.
>> Explore Child Poverty on Hope Book
>> Write up on Culture Hack Website
>> Write up in the Journal
