I attended my first Hack Nashville Hackathon this past weekend. It reminded me a lot of the Startup Weekend I attended several years ago at the Nashville Entrepreneur Center.
A huge thanks to the sponsors of the event. We had fabulous food, beer, snacks and swag all weekend! This alone would have made it a fun event, but what really made it excel were the people who attended and created some pretty amazing things over the weekend.
In just forty-eight hours (or less), several tech projects were started. Over 500 programmers, designers, and techies of all sorts showed up for the event.
It’s amazing as to how much was created by the end of the weekend. It was definitely worth soaking up the creative energy that was present in that building over the weekend.
Friday night, after the amazing meal, several projects were pitched. There was no voting, no elaboration… just people standing up at the microphone to announce their idea, what they would be working on over the weekend, and the skills they needed from others to help on the project.
After all projects were announced, everyone was dismissed to find the team they wanted to join for the weekend. I ended up on the Barber2Beauty team. Our goal was to build a website for someone to find barbers (or stylists) based on their current location (or a location they chose) and schedule an appointment with the barber of choice. We didn’t completely finish the website, but the 6 of us made a LOT of progress and had a really good prototype by the end of the weekend.
Sunday evening, we showed off our projects to the general public – anyone who wanted to attend was invited. During the expo, each registrant was given three votes. At the end of the expo, the votes were tabulated and the team with the most votes was awarded a trophy.
The team that won had some pretty amazing technology for music and dance. It was also one of the largest teams at the event. They used a lot of different languages and hardware to pull off a spectacular demonstration.
Even though I am exhausted beyond belief, I had an amazing time. I will definitely be going back again next time and will try to take as many creatives as I can. Some or all of my children will be going as there were some there as young as 13 creating amazing things.
It’s not for everyone, but it is for those who enjoy creating with tech toys, being immersed in creative energy, or being on the leading edge of innovation in technology. Great things happen at these events.
Well done Hack Nashville!