It's finally happening!

I guess a quick introduction is in order before I continue to write and ruin Kevin's blogging style! My name is Laura Ryder, and today I'll be the chief Charity Hack blogger. I'll be bringing you updates throughout the day, to give you an idea of how Charity Hack is progressing and what our five chosen charities are getting out of the day.

So we’re almost at our first official coffee break at Charity Hack and already I think the wheels are really turning.

Of course the approximate 60 cups of coffee (big shout out to 3FE for that by the way, and to John Nolan for sponsoring the personalised Charity Hack mugs) that have been consumed already (everyone else's blood system is half caffeine like mine, right?!) between this morning’s welcome cup and what we’ve been drinking to fuel the brain cells from what some would say is a very early hour on a Saturday morning has probably helped grease those wheels.

I'll let you in on a little secret. I used to do a show on a community radio station with a friend (who is also a hacker today actually). We used to do the show at 9pm on a Monday evening, and he would prepare for it by drinking LOTS of coffee and writing the funniest - but the most off the wall - sketches.  My nightmare right now is that the ideas we come up with for Charity Hack charities are like those sketches - genius, but crazy.

I know they won't be though. There's far too much talent in this room in O'Connell House on Merrion Square in Dublin for that to happen. And worst case scenario of course we have fruit from The Fruit People and flapjacks and healthy muffins from Eimear to soak the coffee up!

Already today has been amazing. All five charities turned up ready to go, and hackers were all on site by 8.15am this morning! After a quick meet-and-greet we moved on to a three minute introduction from each charity, before everyone grabbed a pen and jotted down their thoughts on each charity. (You can read profiles on four of those five charities in earlier blog posts by the way.) After that each charity was assigned a project manager and team members and since then we've had five groups of busy bees enthusiastically working away. Working away so enthusiastically that everyone's been told to take a coffee break...and it's led to nothing but a continuation of the buzz of work and nobody moving anywhere near the break area.

Here's hoping the buzz continues right through to 9pm tonight, when we should have five cracking charity campaigns ready to roll out!

Laura