In a laconic, yet loosely structured conversation, internationally misplaced geek @loleg will offer a number of practical ideas for how to get out of a creative rut and brighten up your life through a few good hacks. His advice may inspire you to:

• deconsumerise your free time
• find your beginner's mind
• make things all by yourself
• stretch your abilities
• find new friends
• inspire others

Oleg is an IT engineer living for the last three or four years in the rather congenial atmosphere of Oxford, where in his spare time he has been getting together with friends for sessions in coding and creativity called the Oxford Geek Jam. These open-to-all workshops had a focus on programming open source, creating digital art and games, playing with hardware, or just having an excuse to hang out and have fun.

In the past year, he visited and interacted with people working in creative spaces for open, ethical collaboration, being astounded to learn about thousands more spaces and groups of this type around the world - all connected through Intelligent Robotic Carrier pigeons and the Web. He promises to share stories about hackerspaces, barcamps, geek jams and dev camps, talk about getting started with your next brilliant project, and propose a few reasons why Reading and Oxford need hackspaces to call their own.