Hackfort focuses on bringing together technologists, creators and innovators and offers a range of programming from keynotes, breakouts and workshops focused on gaming, AI, 3D printing, the intersection of technology and music, animation, rural communities and much more!
Hackfort will take place Thursday through Saturday of Treefort 2022 (March 23-27, 2022) at Boise Centre East.
Plan on nerding out all Treefort weekend? Snag a Hackfort Badge to gain priority access to all events. Admission to Hackfort is also included in a Treefort Pass.
BUY YOUR HACKFORT BADGEDive into some of this year’s Hackfort events below. All events and lineup can be found on the Treefort App.
KEYNOTE: SELLING BETTER DRUGS
( an introduction to medicinal media )
Video games are proving to be a powerful, effective and accessible treatment for mental illness. Creating these therapies requires a reversal in thinking. Treatments cannot be simply ‘gamified’; rather, the most captivating games must be ‘medicinalized’ to preserve and enhance their already famously compelling nature.
Explore the emerging field of Immersive Medicine, a mixed discipline where cognitive behavioral science, neurology, physiology and world-class entertainment converge to produce highly effective, patient-centric, treatment mechanisms – and the treatment is just having fun.
BOISELAN (BYOC/LAN PARTY)
( separate ticketed event )
BoiseLAN is coming to Hackfort this year as a separately-ticketed event taking place at Hackfort. BoiseLAN is typically a weekend-long bring your own computer LAN party! Gamers from all over the northwest get together to compete in tournaments, talk tech, and of course game all weekend.
BUY NOWBUILD YOUR OWN CUSTOM KEYBOARD
( separate ticketed event )
Learn about and build your own custom mechanical keyboard! In this workshop, you’ll provide your own keycaps and switches and we’ll help you build a 60% keyboard kit, go over how to program it using VIA configurator and QMK Toolbox as well as answer any questions you have. Only 30 tickets available – Hackfort Passholders get a mega discount!
BUY NOW
MAGIC OF THE BANDS
Hackfort and Gem State Gaming Convention invite one member of your band to compete in a Magic of the Bands Tournament FOR FREE. Your band picks their very best Magic: The Gathering Drafter to compete then watch them battle the other bands for a chance to win the $500 grand prize!
Come watch Treefort bands battle it out for glory and a $500 prize (!!) at Magic of the Bands.
BAND SIGN UPDROPPING INTO THE METAVERSE
The metaverse is coming and with it, new ways of doing medicine, identity, and even wealth. Join this panel as they discuss where we are and where we’re headed.
Presented by: Kathleen Cohen, AJ Rodriguez, Anson M. Moise M.D., Ken Brook
ROBOTS ARE BUYING YOUR SHOES AND GRAPHIC CARDS
Bots are buying your shoes and your games consoles and all of the graphics cards. This panel brings a diverse viewpoint from across the industries that have been affected by the use of this new technology.
Let’s have a chat about what can be done or what needs to change to help get these items back into the hands of the consumer.
Presented by: Brendan Dunne, Ken Brook, Brady Harrison, Dennis Garcia
PARANORMAL POP CULTURE
( exploring the entertainment of the unexplained )
Aaron Sagers is a New York City-based journalist, author, and researcher of the weird pursuing the cross-cultural connections of the paranormal across the globe for more than 15 years. He currently appears on Travel Channel’s Paranormal Caught On Camera (now filming its fifth season) is host of Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Ripley’s Road Trip web series, host of Den of Geek’s Paranormal Pop Culture Hour, and host of the NightMerica true crime/paranormal podcast.
Sagers was co-creator, host and Co-Executive Producer with Zak Bagans on Travel Channel’s Paranormal Paparazzi (based on his ParanormalPopCulture.com site), host of Destination America’s Paranormal Lockdown: Evidence Revealed, and has discussed the unexplained on Portals to Hell, Paranormal Challenge, The Today Show, NPR, BBC, CNN, HuffPost, and was profiled in The Hollywood Reporter, and featured in The New York Times.
SMASH BROS, ASSEMBLY, AND GAME HACKING FOR EVERYONE
Join Smash legend Dan Salvato as he demystifies Assembly, machine code, and the bare-metal internal workings of computers and game consoles by hacking Super Smash Bros. Melee!
Whether you’re a developer who wants to learn Assembly, or simply a gamer who’s curious about classic consoles and game modding, this presentation is designed to be fun and enlightening for all skill levels.
HACKING CREATIVITY WORKSHOP
( business edition )
Part presentation, part workshop for emerging and established startups, entrepreneurs, marketers, Rea invites you to think differently about how to effectively promote your business, side hustle, or organization in unexpected, memorable ways. Learn from leading industry examples and actionable insights while implementing new processes to help solve your current challenges in a supportive and collaborative environment.
Email any business objectives or challenges you’d like to work through in advance to thechad@chadrea.com
HUSTLE AND FLOW STATES
( the science of successful music, creativity, and the brain )
Dave Rosen, PhD and Scott Miles, PhD have spent their careers studying music and the brain. They have explored what happens in the brain when we create music, and what it is about songs we love that leads to a dopamine response.
Hear them discuss their groundbreaking findings, which have informed their patented approach to modeling an audience’s response to music.
THE DOPR DEMO
( a tutorial on how to use the AI-platform, dopr, to make better music decisions )
You will learn how neuroscience and AI merged to create dopr, a predictive music analytics platform. Musicians of all levels can get predictive insights about their music.
THE FUTURE OF STREAMING IS NOW
Cord-cutting. Subscription fatigue. The Streaming Wars. What does it all mean for consumers? How can brands navigate the current media landscape? The future of TV streaming is here now, and we have an insider’s guide from the people who have documented this seismic shift in the industry, and the companies on the forefront of the next phase in streaming entertainment.
Moderated by Chris Longo, director partnerships at Den of Geek, the panel will feature key figures in the entertainment industry for an “in-conversation” discussion.
THE STEM GAP
( women’s role in the progression and future of stem )
Women remain underrepresented in STEM fields, with a huge opportunity to create revolutionary change. Join the founder of Womeness Community, Genevieve Nutting, as she creates purposeful conversation about closing the gender gap in STEM with a panel of powerful trailblazer women in STEM. Answering questions including — What are some of the biggest challenges women have faced in STEM and what steps need to be taken for advancement in gender equality? How do we create more opportunities for women to hold leadership roles in STEM? And what are some of the ways women are already advancing what the future of STEM looks like?
ANIMATION ARTIST LARS C LARSEN
Come learn about animation from a professional animation artist. Lars is currently working on Guillermo del Toro’s Stop Motion retelling of Pinocchio. Lars has credits on Coraline, The Boxtrolls, Kubo and the Two Strings, The Shivering Truth and Missing Link.
HEALTHCARE TO RURAL COMMUNITIES THROUGH TELEHEALTH
Discussing how we have brought healthcare to rural communities by utilizing telehealth technology to connect patients with doctors in underserved areas.
OFFENSIVE SECURITY FOR BUSINESS LEADERS
( war stories and lessons learned from a management consultant )
Distilling actionable insights from offensive security projects can be trickier than it seems, especially for business leaders that have mid-level technical chops. Moreover, the singular ability to understand how the minutiae of a pen test and strategic business objectives intersect is practically unheard of. One could call this exercise a game of telephone from hell. This session will explore – through lessons learned the hard way – how business leaders can approach problems and create frameworks to get the most value out of their technical resources and broader ‘security dollars’. It will also explore communication strategies for folks towards the technical end of the spectrum on how to better articulate complex content in ways wider audiences in an organization can consume.
METHODS TO GAIN CYBER COMPETENCY
This talk will present methods & approaches for students and mid-career professionals to potentially leverage to gain a leg up in the search for new cybersecurity career opportunities. This will include views from an education and hiring perspective.
HOW TIKTOK CAN CHANGE YOUR BUSINESS
Hear the story of Just Baseball, and how TikTok and other social channels changed the way the business formed.
Peter is the Co-Founder and Director of Content Strategy at Just Baseball Media and the Co-Host of the Just Baseball Show. Peter previously worked with the New York Yankees before starting Just Baseball in 2021.
DISCOVER 3D PRINTING WITH 3D PRINTCESS
( walk up workshop )
Discover the world of 3D Printing with a hands-on experience in which you will take a design from software all the way to a final product. Choose from several designs and learn each step of the 3D Printing process, or just stop by and see 3D printers in action, printing other festival-goers designs!
Sierra Sandison is a Mechanical Engineering student at Boise State University, with minors in Computer Science, Biomedical Engineering, and Applied Mathematics. Sierra’s love of 3D printing began when she was a toy engineering intern for Caleb Chung, the inventor of the popular 90s toy, the Furby. Sierra launched her business, 3D Printcess, last spring after going viral on TikTok with some of her 3D printing projects and winning her track in the Idaho Entrepreneurship Challenge.
THE LOCK PICKING LOUNGE
( walk up workshop )
Back at Hackfort by popular demand, join us for our second Hackfort appearance as The Lock Picking Lounge, an interactive space designed to give every person the chance to sit down, relax, and learn the basics of picking locks!
The lounge will provide all the necessary expertise of hobbyist pros and locksmiths for teaching, supplies for picking, and even advanced challenges of real-world locks such as door/deadbolt locks (picking/shimming), bike, and trailer (coupler) locks, handcuff picking, and safe cracking.
Lock Picking is for EVERYONE, of all ages, creeds, and experiences, so who’s to say you can’t get as obsessed with this as much as us? You never know when it will come in handy…
REMOTE PATIENT MONITORING
Advances and benefits of Remote Patient Management (PRM) as it relates to improving access to health care in rural communities.
LEVERAGING TECHNOLOGY IN THE 80S & 90S
How I leveraged early personal computer technology from the Apple II, the IBM 5150 through the use of an IBM 486 in the mid-1990s as a point of sale device for Neiman Marcus Stores.
ROBOT DANCE PARTY WORKSHOP
In this creative and challenging workshop, participants will work in teams of 2-3 participants to assemble and code a Mojipod robot to perform choreographed dance moves to the team’s selection of song. Participants are encouraged to bring a laptop with open source software provided in advance of the workshop.
HANDHELD VALIDATION
( the joys of gameboy modding and restoration )
Dive into the satisfying world of Gameboy modding armed with Evan’s lessons learned: one year in. How and why Evan got into modding Gameboys and other retro game consoles. Tips for sourcing consoles and components, common upgrades, successful troubleshooting techniques, and general lessons learned. Skills that the hobby of Gameboy modding provides opportunities to learn and cultivate such as 3D printing, electronics, resin casting, and painting techniques.
PROCESS IN PRACTICE
( product design workshop )
Product Design (UX, UI) isn’t just about mocking up pixel-perfect designs (ok, yes, that is a part of the job), but there’s so much more that happens before screens are even considered. Process in Practice aims to provide a glimpse into industry professionals’ processes for problem-solving.
In this workshop, participants can expect to solve a complex design challenge through a series of hands-on activities, which will ultimately inform the final solution. A friendly competition will take place with a prize to ensue.
Post-workshop, there will be a Figma crash course, the industry-standard interface design tool, where participants will mock up their very own screens.
WHAT MORE BOTS THAN HUMANS ONLINE MEANS FOR THE INTERNET
The majority of everyday interactions on the internet are no longer human. The majority of comments on videos, posted reviews, attempted purchases, even watched ads are more often than not automated scripts, bots, and virtual machines pretending to be human. This tipping point in the source of internet traffic is known as the “internet inversion.”
While bots have made up the majority of internet traffic for years, the recent dominance of malicious bots has resulted in hundreds of millions of fraud and losses each year with no sign of slowing down. If you are interested in learning how bots are identified and ultimately stopped, join Sr. Data Analyst Brady Harrison in breaking down how these bots are shaping the future of the internet regarding fraud, content moderation, monetization, and more!
WHAT I LEARNED FROM WORKING ON RETRO PCS
As users of technology, it is common for us to always want the latest and greatest. A new phone comes out supporting a larger screen and faster processor, we must have it. Early cassette tapes transitioned towards Compact Disk and later to digital music. We used to buy games on physical media and now have digital subscriptions. All of these advancements open up new opportunities in our growing technical world.
However, with all that advancement we often forget about what we have lost in the process. This discussion will focus on how computers have advanced since the early PC days and the challenges each hardware generation was designed to solve, what was left behind, and ways we can get it back.
