Welcome To HacKid!

Important Update for HacKid 2013:

Unfortunately due to issues beyond our control, the third venue we had secured (the other two fell out) for HacKid in March 2013 also is now not viable.

Given the flux related to venues, our major benefactor/sponsor was forced to withdraw funding. This means that our ability to host the conference in March is not possible.

Instead, we are going to take the resources and equipment and invest in continuing to support our sister organization, Defcon Kids, in August in Las Vegas instead.

I apologize for the disappointing news.

Kids are our future, why not give them that spark that will set them on a journey that only “hacking” can inspire?

HacKid is a new kind of conference focused on providing an interactive, hands-on experience for the entire family — kids aged 5-17 & their parents — in order to raise awareness, excitement and understanding of technology, gaming, mathematics, safety, privacy, networking, security and engineering and their impact on society and culture.

“Hacking” is the word our community chooses to use to describe creative, fun and innovative ways of exploring problem solving.

The idea for the conference revolves around providing an interactive, hands-on experience for kids and their parents which includes things like:

• Staying Safe Online
• Dealing with CyberBullies
• Online gaming safety
• Building Medieval Trebuchets
• Interactive robot building
• How the Internet works
• Food Hacking
• Hair Hacking
• Lego Derby racing
• Manipulating hardware and software for fun
• Meeting & interacting with law enforcement
• Low-impact martial arts/self-defense & anti-bullying techniques
• Creating a podcast
• Building a Makerbot robot that builds 3D parts
• Learning to program in Kodu & Scratch
• …and much more!

The format of our conference is really interesting. Unlike a traditional conference where a call for papers is issued, or a completely unstructured “un-conference,” we mix advisory board recommendations with a crowd-sourced concept based on interesting submissions.

If you have additional ideas for cool things to do, let us know via @HacKidCon, email

We are coordinating 2013 HacKid in Sunnyvale, CA  now.  It is currently scheduled for March 16-17, 2013.

We will open registration in the January 2013 timeframe.

* Please note: HacKid is a registered non-profit corporation with the Commonwealth of MA. Our Federal 501(c)(3) status in process.  100% of HacKid sponsorship/admission proceeds are fed back into building a great set of conferences, investing in necessary infrastructure and operating expenses.