Event: Hack Texas Hackathon, a 24-hour coding marathon hosted by the Technology Entrepreneurship Society at the Cockrell School of Engineering
When: 3 p.m. Friday, Oct. 19, through 3 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 20. Interested attendees must RSVP online.
Where: Student Activities Center (SAC), Ballroom
Background: The first-ever 24-hour Hack Texas Hackathon will take place Oct. 19-20 at The University of Texas at Austin’s Student Activity Center (SAC). A hackathon is an event that brings together computer programmers, software developers and other creative people to collaborate intensively in this case for 24 hours to develop new and innovative software projects. These projects could result in Web applications, mobile applications, games, algorithms and more.
The overnight event will unite savvy computer programmers and coders from across campus as well as from the community to work as individuals or teams that will be challenged to create a software project. These coding projects could result in usable apps for cellphones, Web development and software advancement.
“Hack Texas, like everything else in Texas, is going to be big, which plays well right into, yes, Metcalfe’s Law,” said Bob Metcalfe, professor of innovation at the Cockrell School of Engineering and inventor of Ethernet. “Think of all the possible n-squared connections to be made among all those entrepreneurs over night at our huge new Student Activity Center.”
Hack Texas is hosted by two student organizations Technology Entrepreneurship Society and Hacker’s Lounge and will mark the first time the SAC has accommodated a 24-hour event.
Prizes will be given away to the top three teams, who will be judged by Ross Buhrdorf, chief technology officer at HomeAway; Bill Boebel, angel investor and managing director at Capital Factory; Bob Metcalfe, professor of innovation at the Cockrell School and inventor of Ethernet; and Chris Hyams, vice president of product from Indeed.
Prizes include Apple TVs, Nexus 7 tablets, iPads, monitors and more.
Find more information and RSVP for Hack Texas online.
Schedule:
3-4 p.m. Participants arrive, informal team forming
4-4:15 p.m. Introduction presentation
4:15-4:45 p.m. Company presentations (Indeed, Twilio, Return Path)
4:45-5:30 p.m. More team forming, idea generation and mentor pairing
5:30 p.m. Start hacking
7 p.m. Dinner
11:30 p.m. Midnight meal
6:30 a.m. Breakfast
Noon Lunch
1 p.m. Hack submission deadline
1:30-2:30 p.m. Presentations, judging, prizes given out
3 p.m. Hackathon ends
