Head Start’s First Ever HackathonThinking Outside the Blocks

May 14 - 15, 2016Nashville, Tennesse

The Head Start Hackathon provided an opportunity for early childhood education experts to come together as a community in the name of innovation. For two days enthusiasts from across the country gathered in Nashville to work together and pave the way for future generations of our nation’s most vulnerable children. Rather than code software or build websites, our participants worked in small teams to develop big-picture ideas and concepts to further three exciting goals:

1. enhance, deliver, and communicate Head Start’s value;

2. foster knowledge exchange throughout the community; and

3. connect with existing and new audiences in meaningful ways.

To kickoff the weekend NHSA presented the teams with a challenge board listing four overarching themes (awareness, leadership, community, and impact), and a number of concepts to get them started. Teams had to decide whether to select a theme, one of the prepared concepts, or create a completely new challenge to develop over the weekend. In the end, participants gathered into seven groups with a variety of topics and challenges to work on over the two days.

We have an amazing opportunity to ensure the window of opportunity stays open for the most vulnerable

children and families, securing what they need to succeed in school and life.

Find out more at HeadStartHackathon.org

Innovation LeadersWhile each team created compelling and meaningful ideas, the panel of esteemed judges selected three winning teams. Judges included Lee Carter, Partner at M+P; Donna Kelley, Product Strategy Consultant for Adobe; Nick de la Mare, Co-Founder of Big Tomorrow; Sara Mead, Partner at Bellweather Education Partners; and Linda Smith, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Early Childhood Development for the Administration for Children and Families.

Community Lift

Community Lift is a Head Start database that collects promising practices and needs from 200,000 Head Start teachers and staff to leverage their collective expertise in school readiness, parent engagement, and health outcomes for families and children. In order to bring the ideas from the database to life, NHSA will build and staff an Innovations Lab that partners with foundations, venture capitalists, researchers, advisors, business leaders, health experts etc. to mentor the prototype groups through the lab accelerator for three to six months.

Bias Busters

The Bias Busters initiative will challenge and undo inequality facing our nation’s most vulnerable children and families by implementing a National Visiting Fellowship Program. NHSA will partner with an expert anti-bias organization to develop and

implement a national fellowship program to disrupt inequality. The program will have a standard curriculum developed by NHSA and recruit fellows from the Head Start community. Fellows would hold regular meetings with staff, parents, and community leaders to convene courageous conversations and identify plans for raising self-awareness of bias.

Continuing Success in Education

With the goal of eliminating the third grade fadeout, Continuing Success in Education would implement the family engagement techniques of Head Start in the K-3 grades. The project is multi-faceted and includes parent meetings, coaching, a parent committee, and an app that helps track parents’ progress and engagement.

Head Start Hackathon participants celebrate the end of an exciting weekend working together to pave the

way for future generations of Head Start.

Other Exciting Challenges

NHSA Fellowship Program

The NHSA Fellowship program cultivates the next generation of leadership by selecting and recruiting an annual cohort of Head Start fellows that would coach and mentor Head Start grantees to improve performance. Head Start fellows would be recruited from the already existing experts in the Head Start field and would attend an orientation process guided by the Office of Head Start. Fellows would work with programs to create and implement an action plan and assess the program’s progress and outcomes.

Investing in Children by Investing in Teachers

Investing in Children by Investing in Teachers is a multi-faceted campaign run by NHSA to increase both public awareness of the need to invest in teachers and public support for raising salaries as the first priority. The campaign includes a public service announcement, website with interactive features, infographic series, social media campaign, and more. In addition, as the public awareness campaign unfolds, NHSA would convene stakeholders to craft concrete federal policy solutions that can be implemented in the next Head Start reauthorization.

Head Start Innovation Lab

The Head Start Innovation Lab would build and facilitate programs’ capacity for innovation by supporting innovative programs with incubation tools and launching new initiatives that improve quality. Through a series of yearly cohorts, program leaders would complete an innovation experience that would include innovation training, networking, and developing solutions to local problems. NHSA would then disseminate the ideas to the field both virtually and through gatherings in order to further push the Head Start field from compliance to excellence.

I am Head Start

I am Head Start is a public awareness campaign run by NHSA to garner more support of Head Start and identify the 33 million Head Start alumni. The campaign contains a website, videos, public service announcements, social media campaign, and more. Through the campaign, Head Start alumni could sign up to be part of the NHSA Alumni Network and also take advocacy actions related to NHSA government affairs priorities.

“All these challenges are concerned with where Head Start has been, where it's going, and how we can utilize untapped potential to really take advantage of the rich opportunity that exists in the Head Start community."

Jeff ConyersExecutive Director

Dollywood Foundation

"I was really excited to see NHSA thinking in new ways about how to translate Head Start's values for a new context - for a new generation of educators, parents, and kids with different life experiences and exposure to new kinds of technology."

Sara MeadPartner, Policy and Thought Leadership

Bellwether Education Partners

Moving Forward

NHSA is inspired and invigorated by the ideas that were developed at the Head Start Hackathon and is committed to refining and developing the three winning ideas further in the coming months.

In order to do so, NHSA has invited the three teams to send representatives to attend the first ever Head Start Innovation Summit, hosted in Seattle, WA from July 25th - 27th, 2016. At this event, the teams will have the opportunity to get further feedback from other members of the Head Start community and pitch their ideas to funders.

The energy, passion, and creativity displayed during the Hackathon demonstrated one thing clearly: there is dedicated and committed leadership that will secure the Head Start promise for generations to come.

Head Start began as an experiment more than 50 years ago and has continued to be open to new hypotheses, new evidence, and new challenges throughout. Head Start’s embrace of innovation will continue to ensure that our nation’s most vulnerable children receive the best comprehensive services and education possible for preparing them for school and life.

The Continuing Success in Education team runs through their presentation one last time before going before the judges.