Innovation Engine: How Doug Hamilton is Building Charleston's Tech Community One Hackathon at a Time

Doug Hamilton is revolutionizing Charleston's tech landscape through an unexpected lens: fatherhood. As founder of Charleston Hacks, Hamilton's mission grew from a deeply personal place – creating compelling reasons for his three teenage children to build their futures in the Lowcountry. Since 2023, he's been orchestrating hackathons that bridge technology, entrepreneurship, and creativity across Charleston.

The LA transplant who arrived in 2006 brings together problem-solvers in intense, time-constrained collaborative sessions. "It's making something in whatever means necessary in a really short period of time," Hamilton explains, describing the hackathon concept that's become his organization's signature. Through partnerships with the College of Charleston, Charleston Tech Corridor, and even MIT, Charleston Hacks has launched innovative events including an AI Film Festival where participants created emotionally resonant 30-second films in just three hours.

Charleston's accessibility forms the backbone of Hamilton's success. "Maybe in Charleston it'll take me 20 emails to get something going," he notes, contrasting with larger cities where connections prove more elusive. This June, Charleston Hacks launches Innovation Engine, connecting businesses facing challenges with creative problem-solvers. Software developers, project managers, and marketers can select problem statements that intrigue them, with winners receiving substantial cash prizes.

Hamilton's balanced perspective on controversial technologies like AI reflects his philosophy: "You can't stick your head in the sand and say no, I don't like it." Instead, he advocates for hands-on experience, enabling informed opinions through direct engagement. When not running Charleston Hacks, he applies this innovative mindset at MUSC's Department of Surgery, accelerating medical technology startups.

Ready to explore Charleston's tech revolution? Visit CharlestonHacks.com, search for Innovation Engine, or subscribe to their Monday newsletter to discover how you can contribute to building Charleston's technological future.

Transcript

Charleston Marketing Podcast Intro

Speaker 1 0:00

Welcome to the Charleston Marketing Podcast, brought to you by the Charleston AMA and broadcasting from our friends at Charleston Media Solutions Studios. Thanks to our awesome sponsors at CMS, we get to chat with the cool folks making waves in Charleston, from business and art to hospitality and tech. These movers and shakers choose to call the Lowcountry home. They live here, work here and make a difference here. So what's their story? Let's find out together in five four three, two awesome pictures up.

Speaker 2 0:35

What do we do? Oh no, hey folks. Mike compton here with the charleston marketing podcast stephanie barrel here with the charleston marketing podcast and we have Doug Hamilton here. Doug is the founder of Charleston Hacks. We've got a lot to talk about with Doug, but real quick, I got a little disturbance in the background.

Speaker 1 0:54

We're live from the DigSouth Tech Conference. If you can't tell, we're live from DigSouth right now.

Speaker 2 0:59

Yeah, it's a lot happening, we're talking to all the who's who here at DigSouth. They're coming right off the stage, right onto our set here and chatting with us Today. Right now we have a founder of Charleston Hacks.

Speaker 1 1:11

All right, talk to us a little bit about Charleston Hacks.

Speaker 3 1:14

So Charleston Hacks is a non-profit organization that we started a couple years ago, myself and Dave Ingram of Query, and we support tech, entrepreneur and creative communities here in Charleston.

Speaker 1 1:27

That's amazing. Now how long have you?

Speaker 3 1:28

been doing this Since 2023. Okay, so we got some traction.

Speaker 1 1:31

So right after COVID. Right after yes, you fully jumped in and embraced the community.

Speaker 3 1:36

I did After attending a hackathon myself. I wanted to bring it here.

Speaker 1 1:40

That's cool, that is amazing.

Speaker 3 1:42

Why, why? Opportunity. I have three kids and I thought if I want them to stick around, we need to grow some communities.

Speaker 2 1:50

I like this. There's a theme here. There's a theme about that, because we all have young kids.

Speaker 1 1:54

We have young kids, you too.

Speaker 3 1:55

How old? Are your children Stanfield also, I've got a 19, a 17, and a 14-year-old.

Speaker 1 2:03

Okay, I had a 19, a 17, and a 14-year-old.

Speaker 3 2:04

Okay, love it.

Speaker 2 2:04

One's college bound. I'm sorry, how old again, I was too upset. She loves to interrupt me.

Speaker 3 2:07

I do love the children talk 19, 17, and 14.

Speaker 2 2:11

Okay, a little older than ours, a little older than our kids. I've got two nine-year-olds.

Speaker 3 2:14

Okay.

Speaker 2 2:14

But my point was Stanfield. I remember during his episode he talked starting this because of his kids and wanting his kids to stay here in the market.

Speaker 1 2:28

I think that's a great that's a very inspiring mission. I certainly hope so. Yeah, I'm on board. Okay, I'm on board, love it.

Speaker 3 2:33

So but are you from here? I grew up in Los Angeles, so no, oh my gosh another one. Uh-oh, there's more of us.

Speaker 1 2:41

No, I lived there for 10 years. I'm a big fan of LA. Okay, that's long enough. I felt like a Los.

Speaker 3 2:47

Angelino for a minute, but you're not there anymore.

Speaker 1 2:49

No, I love Charleston.

Speaker 3 2:51

I know, so do I.

Speaker 1 2:52

I was one of those people who came for vacation was living in Nashville at the time, moved a year later. Not looking back.

Speaker 2 2:59

Your buddy, justin Allen.

Speaker 1 3:00

Yes, Justin Allen.

Speaker 2 3:01

We just dropped his podcast. Justin Allen is a cinematographer producer from LA. Oh cool Worked on Mad Men.

From LA to Charleston: Finding Community

Speaker 3 3:08

He lives here. That's amazing. We're recruiting. It's amazing he was here.

Speaker 1 3:12

Isn't it wild Level of talent it's crazy how long have you been here from LA.

Speaker 3 3:17

I moved here in 2006. We got married out in the battery. Oh cool, that was great, that's nice 06 is a long time to be living here, right, and I was working remotely most of the time, which is a big thing, right, because you don't really ever talk to people if you're working remotely all your career. And then, finally, covid hit and I got canned, so I started reaching out.

Speaker 1 3:39

Okay.

Speaker 2 3:41

Thankfully you did.

Speaker 3 3:44

I mean, what keeps you here, though? The people are amazing. Honestly, the access is really good. Growing up in Los Angeles or I lived in Manhattan for a while I mean maybe in Charleston it'll take me 20 emails, maybe more, to get something going there. I don't know if it'll ever get something going. No, kidding the access is great here 20 emails.

Speaker 1 4:03

That's a number I love that number.

Speaker 3 4:11

Why did you? Is that your average? Number of how many emails it takes to connect with an organization a sponsor, I would say that it's a little on the low side. But yeah, you know you need a lot of touch points. You need to say, yeah, we're still here. We still get this plan going.

Speaker 2 4:21

It's a lot of work and you've done a lot of work in a little amount of time. Yes, since 2023, that feels like yesterday, by the way.

Speaker 3 4:27

Yeah, we've had something like seven or eight hackathons and we have a nonprofit.

Speaker 1 4:32

What's a hackathon now?

Speaker 3 4:32

Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry, I'm using weird words.

Speaker 1 4:35

No, I like it.

Speaker 3 4:35

Well, we're Charleston Hacks, so the word to describe making something in whatever means necessary in a really sort of short period of time.

Speaker 2 4:49

the objective is important and the means are whatever you can pull together now, when you think of hackathon though stuff, are you thinking of hacking, like like a hacker getting into a computer system of.

Speaker 3 4:58

Like the old school hacker movie with angelina jolie you know I'm talking about well that's also part of it, okay, but that's more the cyber world, so B-sides and stuff like that. That's a whole other thing. But we also love that community as well. Okay, the good ones.

Speaker 2 5:18

Thank you.

Speaker 1 5:19

Angelina Jolie was a very good hacker, so that worked out for her. How are you getting the people to come to you to get involved?

Speaker 3 5:26

So College of Charleston has been a really great partner. It's partnerships, right. Getting a bunch of people at once cuts the time dramatically Stan for Dig, South Lancey for College of Charleston. There are these hubs, these people that are connected to everybody. It makes everything happen.

Speaker 1 5:45

Are you ever working with Charleston Tech Corridor?

Speaker 3 5:47

And Ernest over at the CDC? Absolutely yes, we love him. We had him on the show too, but Access again. It didn't take long to get all of these people on board with stuff. You're right, I think, as long as you are for real, yeah people can. Authenticity.

Speaker 2 6:03

Authenticity yeah, people connect. You've got to want to give, you've got to want to. That's what my new slogan is. I have a lot to give and a lot to learn. Yes, ooh, love that. I think I was with you when you came up with this on one of our podcasts.

Speaker 1 6:15

Thanks, yeah, I think this is your new tagline. Yeah.

Inside AI Film Hackathons

Speaker 2 6:20

But so you thought you have the AI film here.

Speaker 1 6:24

Is that?

Speaker 2 6:24

your idea. Your brainchild was Stanfield.

Speaker 3 6:35

So part of what we do is we're experimental. So not only is it a hackathon for the people that attend, but it's a hackathon for us. So we have a board of eight people and we try new things, one of which was getting into AI film and seeing if AI video was a thing Like what can you do in three hours? Can you make 30 seconds of something that'll create an emotion, some kind of tension or anything humor 30 seconds 30 seconds Okay.

Speaker 1 6:58

Because it's a 30-second film.

Speaker 3 7:00

Yes.

Speaker 2 7:00

How long do you get to make the film? Three hours how many props do you get and which platforms do you have to use?

Speaker 3 7:06

So part of that connecting thing again is finding another partner. So we're connected with MIT up in Boston, okay. Nice, I know it's great my son's doing an internship there this summer. Okay, the Harbor hack, which we do in October, is modeled after one of the hackathons they have there. It's actually the MIT reality hack. The one that we just did was from the AI Film Fest that they recently had.

Speaker 3 7:34

So I went up there and I found their sponsor and I stalked her. No, I didn't stalk her. 20 emails later yeah, it was about 20 emails and multiple people from different directions. But we got an amazing partner, Open Art. They gave us like 25,000 credits per person. Okay, and that's enough to make a 30-second film in a year.

Speaker 1 7:55

So when is the film festival happening?

Speaker 3 7:56

No way, that's cool, it actually happened last night.

Speaker 1 7:58

All right, so tell me about it, because I missed it oh that's okay.

Speaker 3 8:01

It was right down there in room 180. We just had a group of really inspired people come out, work together. They formed teams because you need somebody who's editing. I mean, these guys probably know that even in AI there's a lot of production involved, even for 30 seconds. And at the end of the night they said a few words about their films, showed the films. Some of them were really surprisingly good, some of them were really funny, and we had sponsors like open art and Adobe and when, and we did judging and then there was an audience favorite and the winner got 500 bucks and they the other two categories got $250.

Speaker 1 8:42

Are you allowed to announce the winner?

Speaker 3 8:44

Yeah, well, you'll have to go. You should follow us on Charleston Hacks.

Speaker 1 8:48

Yes there you go. I like it Nice plug.

Speaker 3 8:51

How else do we find you, Doug? So we do. We're doing something called Innovation Engine, which is going to be our hackathon next month.

Speaker 2 8:59

Okay.

Speaker 3 9:04

So if you Google Charleston Hacks or Innovation Engine, you'll find us Innovation Engine, that's cool. Isn't that cool. It's basically connecting individuals to problem statements. So if you're a small business and you need some kind of software solution, you create the problem statement and then we have a community that will solve it or address it in a one-month-long hackathon. Oh, very cool, yeah, and then you get money for winning. That's probably the most generous hackathon we have.

Speaker 1 9:35

And it's fun I was going to say do you ever have open-to-the-public type things?

Speaker 3 9:39

These are all open to the public. Oh, that's great. But you know, you need to engage at some level. If you're a software developer, if you're a project manager, if you're somebody who's really good in marketing.

Speaker 2 9:50

I was going to say marketing.

Innovation Engine & Problem-Solving Competitions

Speaker 3 9:51

How about that Marketing? Yeah, you can give me a problem statement and the participants can bid on or decide to work on it. And the participants can bid on or decide to work on it. I like that idea, so what?

Speaker 2 10:02

is it now?

Speaker 3 10:02

It's called Innovation Engine. It's in the month of June, so we're going to start June 1st and end on June 29th. Awesome Now we've got to drop this before, then don't we? We can make that happen.

Speaker 2 10:12

That would be helpful. We're a good team.

Speaker 1 10:15

I can see that You've got this honed.

Speaker 2 10:17

Well, we're having fun doing this. We are Two and a half years. I'm really impressed. Two and a half years for a podcast, I'm sorry, I'm really impressed. Oh thanks, I feel like I'm on a TV show.

Speaker 3 10:25

This is the first time we've gone live. Oh my.

Speaker 1 10:26

God.

Speaker 2 10:36

First time we've gone live, so you'll see it ahead of time. Say your name wanted me to cut something out.

Speaker 1 10:41

You know, whatever, whatever, but right now people are watching live.

Speaker 2 10:45

Right now my mom's watching live.

Speaker 1 10:47

Hi mom, up here man I just gave her the link.

Speaker 2 10:50

She's doing great, so we talked about what is your day job.

Speaker 3 10:56

Doug. Well, gee, I'm glad you asked my day job. I work at MUOC in the Department of Surgery. I'm not a surgeon but I work with them, okay, fascinating people. So we do a business accelerator Interesting. So it's kind of similar to what I'm doing for nonprofit fun stuff. Yes, but these are med tech companies, young device companies mostly. Oh, gosh.

Speaker 1 11:21

Nice.

Speaker 2 11:22

That's cool. How is that going? You're not at all.

Speaker 1 11:25

bored with your life, I keep busy.

Speaker 2 11:28

He's making it up, though I see this is probably all his brainchilds. I was coached.

Speaker 1 11:31

I know.

Speaker 2 11:33

And then what you do is you find the who.

Speaker 1 11:36

Yes.

Speaker 2 11:37

Have you read the book yet you?

Speaker 3 11:38

know what I'm talking about and you're not talking about the Dr Seuss book.

Speaker 2 11:41

I think he should start getting money you need to partner with them.

Speaker 1 11:45

He's their biggest fan. I just started reading it. I love it. I listened to it on the way here. Who, not how?

Speaker 2 11:53

Stanfield turned me on to it, turned us on to it in the podcast.

Speaker 1 11:56

It's in my Amazon card. I can talk about it if I want to talk about it.

Speaker 2 11:59

It's inspiring stuff oh yeah, you find people to collaborate.

Speaker 1 12:02

Yes.

Speaker 2 12:03

And you make the project bigger.

Speaker 1 12:04

Yes, and that's what you're doing. I'm looking down amongst the gallery there and I'm like I collaborated with that person.

Speaker 3 12:09

I collaborated with that person? Yeah, exactly Without.

Speaker 1 12:11

Living in Toronto, charleston American Marketing Association. Yeah, that's who's our sponsor. Right, that's what we're a part of. Awesome.

Speaker 2 12:20

And so we're always looking for new leadership, new people, new ideas yeah, so we can collaborate with Innovation Engine. Yes, and give them a problem.

Speaker 3 12:31

Problem statement A problem statement. Yes, writing that down Okay.

Speaker 2 12:35

Yeah.

Speaker 1 12:35

We will be DMing you to learn more information.

Speaker 2 12:40

Are you nervous about AI at all? You don't seem nervous. And what do you say to people that are nervous about AI, especially in the AI film department and what goes on there? There's a lot of.

Perspectives on AI & Creativity

Speaker 3 12:51

I love this topic. I don't want to speak authoritatively, but I'll give you a perspective. I think you can't stick your head in the sand and say no, I don't like it, and shut it down and almost cancel it. Play with the tools. We get sponsors so we can see what these tools are all about. I'm a creative person. I went to art school.

Speaker 3 13:15

The AI film stuff is very controversial, but let's see what it's all about. Like I don't, I don't know, and it's a. It's a totally mixed bag, right. So you know, we're trying to figure out a good example of this. But if you have, like two artists artwork and you cut them into little pieces and then just make something out of that, is that, is that like bad? Or if you have a hundred like, how do you decide whether something is stealing? And then there's you know, are you, are you stealing jobs and all this kind of stuff. Yeah, I like to take a neutral position and I want to get stuff in the hands of people so when they do have an argument about it, they have an informed opinion. Yeah, and I try to remain neutral.

Speaker 1 13:55

That's everything. I'm like that. I'm like you. I'm the same way with copywriting and I use imagery and the same thing. So I'm right there with you.

Speaker 2 14:06

I'm on chat like every other hour asking you different things or asking you to build a business plan for me, okay, okay, and it starts that up and then absolutely there.

Speaker 1 14:09

Well, you use it for ideas ideas.

Speaker 3 14:11

Yes, it's great for brainstorming. Yeah, um, but to that point too, uh, debating it. So you're asking in like, in in this format. I know Chad Norman, you know Catch Talent.

Speaker 2 14:23

Yes, no, I don't know him, but I heard him. They do disrupt HR. Yes, I want you to know this person. Okay, he's great.

Speaker 3 14:27

Oh my God you're going to love this guy. So he talked to me about doing a debate event. He's calling it Something Slam, he's working on it. But the idea is like you present this thing right, it's like you know AI, good, bad and then you get two people that have differing opinions about it and then the audience gets like educated from the debate, Sure. So yeah, I mean, that's kind of my vibe, Like I want to hear people debate it. I don't want to get involved.

Speaker 1 14:54

I want to hear it. That's kind of how I feel about politics. I'll watch it all go down, but I'm not going to voice my opinion.

Speaker 3 14:59

I mean I may have an opinion, oh same, I'm right there with you. We'll talk about it over wine with Matthew.

Speaker 2 15:05

Oh my gosh, doug, we could talk for hours. I think lunch just got here. Yes, you had a 12th interview today so congrats to you. It was so fun.

Speaker 3 15:21

That was so much told you one last time. Charlestonhackscom or google innovation engine, you'll find us and we have an awesome newsletter that comes out every monday perfect, we're gonna start a collaboration of some sort I love that we'll. We'll have lunch. Let's do it. I got you. You linked in with me, so we are now linked in, yeah um, awesome, stephanie.

Speaker 2 15:35

Good work, thank you to our sponsors uh, thanks to coz and larry, monteith and Delaney for getting lunch. And Dig South.

Speaker 1 15:43

Charleston Media Solutions.

Speaker 2 15:45

Yep.

Speaker 1 15:45

We're going to take a lunch break. We'll be, back in about 15 minutes.

Speaker 2 15:48

Yep with the next interview.

Speaker 1 15:50

With the next interview.

Speaker 2 15:51

Thank you guys, thanks bud Good work.