The Hackathon is one of the best parts of Disrupt. Granted, it’s not quite as emotional as watching the Battlefield rounds play out, but there’s something sort of inspiring about the idea that you may be building the start of a company during a 24-hour beer/pizza/Red Bull-fest.
Success stories like Group.me and Docracy were born at our Hackathon, but they’d be the first to tell you that none of it is possible without our awesome API sponsors. These include foursquare, The Echo Nest, metaLayer, Twilio, bitly, Tumblr, Spotify, Mobli and more. But one has gone above and beyond when it comes to teasing out the event, with the promise to offer “one thousand dolla dolla bills” to the hacker who makes the best use of their API.
Knodes, who is offering up a context API which maps users’ social graphs, has made a movie-type trailer ahead of the Hackathon and posted it to YouTube. It promises that same cash reward we just talked about, packaged nicely in a briefcase, along with a $250 JetBlue gift card.
The tagline reads: “You. On a plane. With a briefcase full of money. Make it happen.”
Other sponsors are handing out cash too (among other things), including $5,000 from both AT&T and CityGrid, and a whopping $10,000 from Mobli. Ticket sales are already closed for hackers, but you’re more than welcome to attend the Hackathon presentations on Sunday. If interested, sign up with this EventBrite link.