Student’s Master’s Project Accepted Into New York Hackathon

Jason Jaacks, ’14, will attend to the Tribeca Film Institute Racontr Hackathon in December to workshop his documentary, “Return to Elwha,” a story about the largest dam removal in U.S. history.

This two-day Hackathon is meant to provide easy-to-use tools to develop interactive videos.
Djehouti, a France-based software company, will launch a new innovative storytelling platform: Racontr. Collaborative, cloud-based and code-free, Racontr has been made to empower storytellers and let them build their interactive stories as they were meant to be told.

In 2012, Jaacks led an expedition as a National Geographic Explorer down the Elwha River, starting at its source point in the Olympic Mountains and traveling to where the river meets the Strait of Juan de Fuca near Port Angeles, Wash. The project is Jaacks’ master’s thesis project.

“Through scientists, fishermen and adventurers, the audience gets to experience a positive environmental story – one that I hope will inspire people to care about the natural world,” Jaacks said. “I believe the best way to do that is to create an interactive, media-rich web documentary project. Attending the Racontr Hackathon will greatly help make that dream a reality.”