Hack Upstate, part 2
What is a hackathon? The only way I can describe it is “a meeting of the minds, where people from all over come together to make the infeasable possible”.
Every hackathon I go to - and I go to many - reminds me of how amazing people can be. For one night, or one weekend, a swarm of people descends on a problem and uses their power for awesome. I’ve been to events where people created:
- Databases full of information about living off the grid
- Games for teaching children
- Population detection
- Smart stores that work with your smartphone
- Simple peer-to-peer file sharing through a website
- Crowd-sourced storytelling
- A game based around random music
- Two-factor authentication
- Traffic data analyzation
What always impresses me is the sheer creativity involved in these projects. People who might not have ever met before produce projects for the betterment of humanity. What has confused me, though, was how many people try to draw “business” into events meant for “creation”. As one friend phrased his response when asked about how our project would be a sustainable business, “We’re not interested in making a business, we just want to make cool things.” To me, that’s what a hackathon is about, creating.