Compiling Creativity

Compiling Creativity

Yesterday, during SIGNAL’s Day 1 keynote, you heard about our philosophy on code here at Twilio. We believe code is — at its core — a creative endeavor. It’s the act of a human using tools to amplify their intent and potential.

Three years ago we rebooted Twiliocon to SIGNAL. We wanted to bring this new idea to life with all of you, the intrepid developers we serve. You build businesses. And change industries. You inspire movements. You save lives. You amplify the impact you can have on the world.

This morning we opened the show with the John Brothers Piano Company – a group of Computer Science majors turned jazz quartet. Tonight at $BASH, we’ve got some interactive art installations that we think you’re going to love.

We have the good fortune of a front-row seat to what you create.

What Happens When You Let Thousands of Developers Hack an Environment?

Creativity.

As a part of every SIGNAL, we equip attendees with hackable swag we call Hackpack.

This year, version 3.0 took the form of the attendee badge, our take on the Multi-Pass. Plugging your badge into the art installation, NES-style, unlocks the ability for you to draw on a 40 foot wall via text message.

In less than an hour yesterday, all of you deciphered how it worked, and bent the rules we’d built. You used code as a tool to elevate your intent and potential past what we expected. And past what we designed it for.

In less than a day, you advanced from drawing pixels to drawing animated gifs.

In less than two days, you reverse engineered it down to the serial protocol.

The path to 200s is paved with 500s. And that’s where the creativity lives.

Code is creative.

We can’t wait to see what you build next.