By Guest Blogger Stephane Come
CTO, 1-Page; Co-Founder, Page9, Inc; Co-Founder, LCS Technologies, Inc
@StephaneCome
June 2nd, it was another sunny weekend in Sacramento and most people had chosen to go hiking, biking, or just chill by the pool or the lake. However, a group of local coders, graphic designers, entrepreneurs, students and other web aficionados gathered for a 30 hours challenge – The Cereal Hack (1st Sacramento Hackathon)
9:00am The doors of the Sacramento Press offices Downtown Sac opened to welcome more than 60 geeks ready to disrupt the local tech community and build something amazing. Over the weekend, these tech warriors were ready to team up with each other, put their heads together and let the creativity flow. After a few introductions, a set of rules and advice from a Sacramento angel investor, the idea guys were ready to pitch. They had just 60 seconds to tell the audience about their ideas and attract the right talent in the room. Less than an hour later, teams were formed and ready to hack.
With their laptops setup, cloud servers ready to smoke and the right amount of energy drinks, the Challenge was on. You could almost feel the innovation in the air. Designers were designing, coders were coding, mentors were mentoring, tweeters were tweeting, and there was no dull moment right up to the finish line. At that point, each team presented their work to a panel of judges in front of a full house – standing room only. The judges gave their verdict and prizes were distributed to the top 3 teams.
At the end of the day, when the laptops were shutdown, the light turned off and the doors closed, everyone had won. Some gained new friendships, new opportunities, new skills, new dreams and above all, Sacramento’s tech community kicked ass.
Meet some of the teams and their apps that were started over the weekend
Raidarrr! A geo-location based mobile document sharing. Think Stumble Upon meets Google Maps. You’re an artist, a writer or a musician and want to share your work at specific locations with friends and strangers. Pull out our mobile device, upload the content, set the number of shares and let people discover your treasures. (Sherwood, Haily, Eric, James, Luis, Josh and Mason)
BikePoolApp Melody is an avid cyclist and rides to work every day. Even the shortest distances can be dangerous as a solo rider. BikePoolApp is social-media based application that allows fellows riders to connect, shares routes and bike together for safety. Hey, while you are at it, share your weekend adventures and make some new friends on your two wheels. Follow them on Twitter @BikePoolApp for updates (Melody, Nichole, Mike and Matt)
Textabl Say you’re in the mood for Sushi, but it’s always more fun to “roll” with your friends. But how do you let them all know in an instant what you’re thinking? Well, launch Textabl, connect via Facebook, create an event, invite your friends and each one will get notified by text. Any response will be posted on the event page and in no time, you’ve got a party. Enjoy! (Team Hedgehog – Justin, Chris, Mary, Salem and John)
Orgazoid A social and fun way to get stuff done. We all hate our to-do lists, they don’t seem to be fun and we keep starring at them. Let’s share our list with our friends, add some challenge to make it more fun and let’s get things done! (Derrick, Matt, Matt, Mike and Josh)
BladePlanet So, you bought in the P90X exercise program or a fitness membership. You want to look amazing, but have you completed it or just plain given up? Well, how about adding some accountability to your endeavor and have your friends cheer you on your successes or give you crap when you don’t stick to your commitments. A fun and social way to get in shape. (Gary and Daniel)
The Crazy Guys (Viktor and Derrick) A mobile application to search for cars on Craigslist. The app can be configured for more than cars in the future. Winner of the 3taps API Challenge!
Meeting Mute Have you ever forgotten to mute your phone during an important meeting or even during your last interview… Never forget again by scheduling your meetings with the mute option. Kudos to Dan for learning the Android API during the Challenge!
ePoints.com To all employers and employees out there, take the pain out of your next open enrollment and make the process fun. Two thirds of the companies out there don’t have software to manage this process. Let’s start rewarding employees by introducing a fun and interactive process. (Bruce and his team)
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