HISTORY | GREP ‘HACKATHON’

BY JON GOTTFRIED

FOR OPEN TECH NYC 2013

HI. I’M JON GOTTFRIEDDeveloper Evangelist at twilioConductor of the StartupBus

Co-Founder of the Hacker Union

@JonMarkGo

HACKATHONS ARE A BIG DEAL

HACKATHONS PER MONTH ON HACKERLEAGUE

PARTY LIKE IT’S 1999

OPENBSD

• June 4-6, 1999

• Focus on IPSEC

• Calgary, Alberta

• 10 developers

• communal

SUN MICROSYSTEMS

• June 15-19, 1999

• Palm V

• John Gage challenge

• competitive

HACKATHONS != STARTUPS

2005 - SUPER HAPPY DEV HOUSE

FACEBOOK

2005 - BARCAMP

2006 - YAHOO!

2007 - STARTUP WEEKEND

2009 - MUSIC HACK DAY

2010 - HACKNY

2010 - TECHCRUNCH DISRUPT

2011 - ANGELHACK

HACKATHONS PER MONTH ON HACKERLEAGUE

HACKATHON MOTHER SAUCES

• Startup Hackathon

• Open Source Hackathon

• Competitive Community Hackathon

• Brand Hackathon

• Non-technical Hackathon

STARTUP HACKATHON

• Not purely technical

• More practical concepts

• Mix between slides and demo

• Pre-pre-incubator

OPEN SOURCE HACKATHON

• Pure community event

• No financial incentive

• No pitches, just demos

• Focus on a particular technology

COMPETITIVE COMMUNITY HACKATHON

• Prizes galore

• Pitch is important

• Practicality is secondary

BRAND HACKATHON

• Prize is the incentive

• Brands want developer mindshare

• Brands want demo apps

• Not community focused

NON-TECHNICAL HACKATHONS

• “Ideathon”

• Business plan iteration

• Concept pitching

• Slide decks galore!

DOLLA DOLLA BILL Y’ALL

• Developer Mindshare

• Proof of Concepts

• Press

• Lead Generation

• Community Support

• Recruiting

• Free Labor

WHY DO WE HACK?

• Love

• Press

• Money

• Education

• Community

WHAT IS NEXT?

HACKING IS ART

THANK YOU!Jon Gottfried

Developer Evangelist at twilio@JonMarkGo

jon@twilio.com