Listen up, digital rebels and data disruptors! I just dropped a fresh convo with Andrew Reid (CEO of Rival Technologies) about our upcoming Data Storytelling Hackathon, and it’s time to blow your neural pathways with what we’re cooking up.
For those who haven’t been tracking our Vancouver AI community meetups (where have you been?!), we’ve been assembling a cyberpunk coalition of hackers, researchers, creatives, and corporate infiltrators who are all trying to make sense of our rapidly mutating BC + AI Ecosystem. Now we’re channeling that collective brainpower into something deliciously subversive.
The Hackathon That Eats PowerPoint For Breakfast
Let’s be real: most data presentation is trapped in PowerPoint purgatory. Fifty-slide decks that nobody reads, dashboards nobody checks, and insights that die in corporate limbo. It’s like we’re still using dial-up in the age of neural networks.
Andrew and I were riffing on this problem when the hackathon concept emerged. What if we challenged our badass community to reinvent data storytelling using AI? Not just visualize it—but transform it, remix it, and make it speak in tongues nobody’s heard before?
“Most research today ends up being a PowerPoint deck,” Andrew said during our chat. “So you’ll do a study, get your data back, and then what? You build a 50-slide PowerPoint.”
Fuck. That. Noise.
We’re sitting on a technological revolution, and we’re still making pie charts? It’s time to set fire to the status quo.
Is a Hot Dog a Sandwich? (No, Seriously)
For our first iteration (we’re doing four rounds total because why the hell not), we’re using a proprietary dataset from Rival Technologies. They surveyed 500+ humans on that eternal philosophical question: Is a hot dog a sandwich?
This delicious absurdity is exactly the kind of dataset perfect for experimentation. Not critical enough to worry about breaking it, but rich enough with human weirdness to make it interesting. It’s the data storytelling equivalent of a blank canvas with just enough structure to spark creativity.
We’ve already got 30+ teams signed up, and they’re not messing around. One participant is building an entire agent platform to compete across all four competition rounds. That’s the kind of ambition that makes my cyberpunk heart sing.
Synthetic Audiences: Digital Twins or Digital Ventriloquism?
During our conversation, Andrew and I dove deep into synthetic audiences—AI-generated personas that simulate real people for testing and research. This isn’t some far-future tech; it’s happening NOW, and it’s wild territory.
“We will likely be coming up with a synthetic agent,” Andrew shared. “The first thing we’re going to do is build our own that we can use to probably test some marketing campaigns.”
But the most mind-bending application came from researcher Mariana Papa’s work using synthetic personas to understand and help vulnerable populations—like people with autism—without requiring direct participation from those who might struggle with traditional research methods.
This is the frontier where AI becomes profoundly useful: creating understanding without extracting more from communities who’ve already given enough. It’s not just efficient; it’s potentially more ethical when done right.
The AI Day Revolution: Make Time to Play
One of my favorite revelations from Andrew was his company’s “AI Day” concept. Every Friday, a group at Rival Technologies blocks their calendars and spends the entire day playing with AI tools, testing concepts, and diving into rabbit holes.
“I’m sure you like I—well, you even more so than I—are getting inundated with new shit literally every day,” Andrew said. “Every week there’s a new major thing to watch. And it’s hard to keep up to all of it.”
That’s why structured unstructure is so crucial. Those willing to dedicate time to experimentation are the ones who will quantum leap ahead. Not because they’re smarter, but because they’re actively rewiring their neural pathways to think differently.
I’ve seen this in my AI upgrade workshops. Everyone’s focused on mastering tools, but the real transformation is the mindset shift—understanding how these systems think and recognizing what you’re now capable of with these augmented powers.
From Scratch-n-Win to Data Symphonies
The hackathon’s $10,000 prize pool (split across four cycles) isn’t just about rewarding the winners. It’s about catalyzing imagination. Maybe participants will create:
- AI-generated podcasts that make data sing
- Visual art experiences that let you walk through the data
- Synthetic focus groups debating the hot-dog-as-sandwich question
- Custom agents that analyze, create, and present in one seamless flow
- Something so fucking weird we can’t even conceptualize it yet
That last category? That’s where the real magic happens. As I told Andrew, “I can prototype three or five dashboards or apps or concepts in an hour meeting with people now.” We’re no longer limited by development cycles or the pain-in-the-ass iterative process of traditional software development.
The Death of Passive Consumption
If there’s one thread connecting everything Andrew and I discussed, it’s this: the future belongs to the participants. The lurkers, the passive consumers, the people who just watch from the sidelines? They’re ghosts haunting someone else’s algorithm.
This isn’t just about AI—it’s about the entire digital ecosystem we’re building. Active engagement, co-creation, and experimentation are the new currencies. You either create, curate, or interact—or you disappear into the digital void.
That’s why this hackathon isn’t just a competition. It’s a mirror reflecting a fundamental shift in how humans interact with technology and information. We’re not just asking “how do we visualize data better?” We’re asking “how do we completely reimagine our relationship with information?”
Your Brain on AI: The Adaptability Paradox
I’m working on an essay about what I call the Adaptability Paradox—the strange liminal space we’re occupying as humans interfacing with increasingly powerful AI. It’s this weird contradiction where we simultaneously need to:
- Leverage AI to extend our capabilities beyond what was previously possible
- Hold onto the uniquely human perspective that gives those capabilities meaning
Andrew and I touched on this when discussing our age (he’s 48, I’m in my mid-40s) and how it positions us uniquely in this revolution. We’ve “face-planted enough times,” as Andrew put it, to have perspective. We’re not digital natives who take this stuff for granted, nor are we so established in our ways that we can’t adapt.
We’re the bridge generation. The cyborg translators between the analog past and the AI future.
Join the Revolution
The Vancouver AI Data Storytelling Hackathon isn’t just open to coders. It’s for anyone willing to reimagine how we experience and communicate information. Whether you’re a data scientist, artist, researcher, or just someone curious about AI—this is your invitation to experiment.
Come to our next Vancouver AI community meetup to learn more, or hit me up directly with questions. The hackathon kicks off soon, and I’m buzzing with anticipation to see what digital magic emerges.
This isn’t just about winning $2,500 (though who doesn’t like cash?). It’s about being part of the vanguard that’s reshaping how humans process and understand the world.
PowerPoint is dead. Long live the data revolution.
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