Hack the North, a Canadian, collegiate-level, three-day-long hackathon, was held Sept.19 to 21 at UW. Sponsored by over 40 companies including technology big shots Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and IBM and UW start-ups Pebble and Kik, the sleep-optional event brought together code-breakers and code-writers from across Canada.
Hackathons are events where coders get together for an intensive period to work on a project. Hack the North featured teams of up to four working collaboratively to create projects for use, with the help of the on hand experts and sessions designed to cram as much useful techniques in a short period of time.
At the end of the hackathon, teams could elect to present their work to the 14 judges to win awards. Judges included Pebble founder Eric Migicovsky, VeloCity director Mike Kirkup, Y Combinator partner Kathrina Manalac, and Kik CEO Ted Livingston.
Individual sponsors gave prizes for best hacks and best uses of their application programming interface (API). Prizes included Pebble Steels, GoPros, Amazon giftcards, Thalmic Motion’s Myo motion control armband, and cash.
