Announcing the Disrupt NY Hackathon MCs, sponsor prizes and last chance for tickets

This year’s TechCrunch Disrupt NY Hackathon is set to be the best yet. We’re a week away from the main event and are giddy with excitement.

Throughout the week, we’ll be releasing information about the event, and we figured where better to start than with details about spectator tickets, our sponsors and their awesome prizes.

Hackathon tickets

The last round of tickets for hackathon participants is available now, so go quick and get registered.

Spectator tickets

Grab a seat to watch the culmination of all the hard work our hackers put in over the weekend. Today, we’re releasing spectator tickets to watch the presentations of the hack projects on Sunday, May 8. These are for those who aren’t hacking but want to watch the hacks and winners. You can register for a spectator ticket here.

MCs

We are thrilled to announce that Rebecca Garcia and Tarikh Korula will be joining us as MCs.

Rebecca Garcia is a passionate advocate for STEM education for youth and minorities — particularly women. She is the co-founder of CoderDojo NYC; was named a White House Champion of Change for Tech Inclusion; Glamour Magazine’s 35 “Women Under 35 Who are Changing the Tech Industry”; was one of AskMen’s Top 99 Outstanding Women; and is Hispanicize’s STEM star this year. Currently she is the technical head of product at Next Caller.

Tarikh Korula is CEO of Katch.me. A product-obsessed entrepreneur and hacker based in New York, Tarikh was a winner at the world’s first public hack day. With a decade of experience shipping products for Internet, design and media firms, Tarikh drives product and feature development to optimize for growth, community and consumer delight. In the past year, his products have been featured in Wired, TheNextWeb, TechCrunch, Mashable and won Product Hunt.

Sponsors

Our sponsors have provided some amazing prizes. Check out these contests running at the hackathon:

Amazon Alexa

Best use of Amazon Alexa in a voice user experience. The winning team will receive an echo for each team member (up to four).

Cisco
Come hack with Cisco Spark! Connect applications and processes to enhance customer engagement across many industries or solve problems. Use Cisco Spark APIs to integrate and customize collaboration experiences. These open APIs are easy-to-use with access to 24/7 developer support, so you can build off the platforms anytime from anywhere.

Prize:
Cisco will be giving away DJI Phantom 3 Standard drones and BB8 Sphero’s (5 of each) for the best use of our Cloud Collaboration APIs in a hack

Esri
Best use of Esri ArcGIS mapping technology wins $5,000! ($2,500 cash, plus $2,500 valued ArcGIS Online subscription). ArcGIS is the Location Platform for Apps. Quickly add geo to your apps using Esri’s online services and SDKs. Develop in the API of your choice and deploy on any device.

HARMAN International

Harman is providing two different SDKs for the first commercial readily available hackable headphones (Everest 700) and the first glance-able speaker to market (Pulse 2).

Prizes
HARMAN International (2)
Best Overall use of Everest Headphones SDK
Winning team receives a max of 5 Everest Headphones 5 Pulse 2 Speakers
& 5 Omni 10 Speakers

Best Overall use of Everest Headphones SDK:
Winning team receives a max of 5 Everest Headphones 5 Pulse 2 Speakers
& 5 Omni 10 Speakers

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is a global learning company dedicated to changing people’s lives by fostering passionate, curious learners. We are challenging developers to think about applications that could help transform learning, inside and outside of the classroom. Do you have great ideas about the next generation of digital learning tools for teachers and students? Or a way to help families stay engaged in their children’s learning?Prize: $5,000 (All developers who use our API in the hackathon will also get a T-shirt.)

IBM Watson

Have a great idea on how you can build with Watson? Exercise your skills and creativity by creating a cognitive app using Watson services. Leverage the latest in self-learning technology. Participate in the IBM Watson category to:

Get hands-on with Watson capabilities
Develop an app powered by artificial intelligence
Give your hack team a competitive advantage
Increase your chances of ending up on the winners’ stage

Prize: Apple Watch (each member of the winning team up to five members)

Microsoft

1. Office Apps and Add-ins Contest
Two ways to be eligible for this contest:

• Build using Office 365 APIs powered by Microsoft Graph
OR
• Build an Outlook, Word or Excel add-in

Judging Criteria Categories:
• Solutions that help solve big problems and provide high user value
• Completeness of the solution; build a working solution that can be used right away
• Extensive use of Office developer platform; use several REST API’s or build an add-in

Prizes:

• 1st place – $3,000
• 2nd place – $1500
• 3rd place – $500

2. Office 365 Connectors Contest
Build using the Office 365 Connector platform

Prizes:

• 1st place – $3,000
• 2nd place – $1500
• 3rd place – $500

pmdtechnologies
Google CardBoard devices have been around for a while with hundreds of developers creating apps for it but without touchless interaction. Until now. pmd, Google’s 3D depth sensing partner for Project Tango, is making its technology available for CardBoard developers, successfully partnering with gestigon enabling the most intuitive and immersive input for VR: touchless interaction.

Using pmd’s 3D ToF technology in combination with gestigon’s Carnival SDK enables you to understand where your hands and fingertips are. Playing VR chess, re-decorating your VR living room, grap/touch/push/pull VR content, even bringing real objects into the virtual world … we are happy to put this into your hands. Literally.

Prize: $5,000

Twilio
The best use of Twilio’s API will score you an Amazon Tap for each member of the team.

URBAN-X

URBAN-X’s mission is to catalyze, educate, invest in, and advocate for startups who are shaping the future of cities through technology. Hack with city data, creating new products and services that make cities more livable, efficient, and sustainable. This is your chance to show us what you can build to make the city a better place and have your worked judged by people passionate about making it happen. Check Devpost for more info.
• 1st place – $3000
• 2nd place – $1500
• 3rd place – $500