The ICA Pre-conference Hackathon is a two-day hands-on workshop held before the annual meeting of the International Communication Association. It aims to build an open, collaborative, and supportive community across communication subfields using computational and “big data” approaches. Organized by the Computational Methods Division and the Communication Science and Biology Interest Group (CSaB) of ICA, the hackathon emphasizes collective learning, sharing, and collaboration rather than competition.

Participants will form teams to work on programming and research projects, exchange skills, and explore new methods together. Attendees can also lead or join breakout sessions to teach tools, workflows, and best practices in a peer-to-peer learning environment.

We are committed to fostering an inclusive and welcoming space for participants from diverse backgrounds, institutions, and career stages. No prior programming experience is required—researchers, students, and practitioners of all skill levels and identities are encouraged to participate.

📍 When & Where?

Stellenbosch – Just a short ride from Cape Town (shuttle service will be available)

SU School for Data Science and Computational Thinking, Stellenbosch University, Van Der Byl Rd, Stellenbosch Central, Stellenbosch, 7600, South Africa

SU School for Data Science and Computational Thinking

🗓 June 3-4, 2026

🗺️ Directions from the Cape Town International Convention Center (CTICC)

Depending on traffic, travel time is approximately 40 minutes in the morning and up to 90 minutes in the evening.

Option 1: N1 (quickest and safest)

Map directions to the venue

Take Walter Sisulu Ave to Nelson Mandela Blvd (N1/N2).
Turn right onto Nelson Mandela Blvd and move into the left lane, following signs for Paarl/N1.
Follow the N1 for approximately 38 km (±27 minutes).
Take exit 39 onto the R304 toward Stellenbosch/Klipheuwel.
Continue on the R304 toward Stellenbosch for about 15 km (±18 minutes).
The R304 becomes Bird Street — continue until Jan Celliers Rd and turn left.
At the roundabout, take the 3rd exit onto Ryneveld St.
Turn left onto Banghoek Rd.
Turn right onto Van Der Byl Rd (parking is unlikely directly on campus).

Parking: Parking is available at the Neelsie Parking Area (under the Jan Mouton Building, pay-and-go). This parking area is connected via a pedestrian bridge to the building housing the School for Data Science and Computational Thinking.

Option 2: N2 (safe during the day, slower, convenient from the airport)

Map directions to the venue

Take Walter Sisulu Ave to Nelson Mandela Blvd (N1/N2).
Turn right onto Nelson Mandela Blvd and stay in the middle lane, following signs for Cape Town International Airport/N2.
Turn left onto Settlers Way and continue on the N2 toward the Airport.
Continue on the N2 to exit 33 for Baden Powell Drive (R310) toward Stellenbosch/Macassar (±27 km).
Follow Baden Powell Drive for approximately 12 km.
Turn right onto Polkadraai Rd and continue for 4.3 km.
Slight left onto Adam Tas Rd (R44).
Turn right onto Merriman Ave.
Turn left onto Joubert Rd.
Turn right at the first cross street onto Banghoek Rd.
Turn right onto Van Der Byl Rd.

🚌 Shuttle Service

We are organizing a complimentary shuttle service from the main conference venue to our hackathon for both the days! All participants are welcome to use the service at no additional cost.

Shuttle Schedule: tba.

💵 Cost

[Tier A/B/C]: Faculty: $150/$100/$60, Students/Postdocs: $100/$65/$30

🔗 Register

🎉 Registration is now open!

🚨🚨 Please make sure that you are signed in before registering through this link.

❗NOTE: We may have a limited number of registration fee waivers available for participants from under-represented communities. However, it will be reimbursed after the conference takes place.

📢 Stay Connected!

The Hackathon organizing team is no longer on Twitter/X. Follow us on our other platforms for updates and insights from past events:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hackingcommsci
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/hackingcommsci.bsky.social
Website: https://hackingcommsci.org

Don’t miss this opportunity to connect, create, and learn ahead of the ICA conference. We look forward to seeing you in Stellenbosch! 🚀

👩‍💻👨‍💻 What is a Hackathon?

Advancing open research practices in communication is contingent upon sharing tools, ideas, skills, and data across a disparate collection of sub-fields. Although conferences and workshops are undoubtedly beneficial for pursuing these goals, they rarely afford the unstructured time and hands-on collaboration required to fully realize their potential for catalyzing open research practices. We believe that hackathons can serve as a viable means of improving collaboration and skill development within communication science.

During a hackathon, participants self-organize and work together to learn new skills and solve problems of their choosing while engaging in discussions about coding, big data ethics, and reproducible research practices. Hackathons provide a collaborative, low-risk opportunity to experiment with new ideas, find potential collaborators, and to try something a little “out of the box.” For this reason, hackathons are organized quite differently from a traditional preconference or conference session. Instead of audience members passively listening to a series of talks on a subject, they will actively participate in (and perhaps even organize!) projects of their choosing.

On the first day of the hackathon, organizers and attendees will propose a collection of projects that can be reasonably tackled during the hackathon. Everyone will select the project that they wish to work on, and will spend the rest of the time collaborating with their project team to accomplish their desired goals. At the same time, a collection of breakout sessions will serve as a more formal means of sharing knowledge and increasing skills. If you have an idea for a project or breakout session for the hackathon, please reach out to the organizing committee.

Hackathons do not require existing knowledge of computational skills. In fact, projects are often centered around learning and developing resources for beginners. We encourage everyone to participate, even (or especially!) if you have little to no coding knowledge.