Calling All Hack Masters: Test Your Skill @ AppForum2014 Hack-a-Thon

Military academies use strenuous tasks as part of a program of rigorous physical training and initiation to "build character". App Developers give it up at Hack-a-Thon events—public challenges in which participants impress their peers with feats of coding skill and daring by creating amazing applications.

Have you ever been to a Hack-a-Thon? If you touch the IT world in any way (and who doesn’t these days) it’s the kind of a thing that you need to see at least once in your life. Challengers know each other by name or reputation, they gear up in advance to ensure they’re on top of their creative game, and they look forward to their opponents’ peak performance with a sharply honed competitive edge.

Developers come to a Hack-a-Thon to strut their stuff. It’s expected behavior. But this is show-and-tell of a very different order, where developers put their new ideas, true skills, and thought processes on display. They dig deep to leverage all of their skills to bring an application forward, and what they end up creating often bends the mind. That’s because a Hack-a-Thon is all about the experience of being able to freely share new ideas without judgment. That’s part of the expected behavior too. If you’re coming to Schaumburg, IL for AppForum2014, you’re in luck, because you’ll finally get the opportunity to participate in a Hack-a-Thon first hand.

At the AppForum2014 Hack-a-Thon, Motorola Solutions is inviting developers to use their coding skills to create an enterprise-class business or consumer application. Participants will have access to an array of data sources: open, public, or private data sets that they can define in the cloud. They will also have a choice of using native language with our EMDK (that can enable features on Motorola Enterprise Mobile Computers) or using the RhoMobile suite to create a cross-platform application that runs on any device. Participants may compete by themselves or in a group, but only five brains are allowed on a single team. Experts will be on hand to assist. And yes, there will be prizes. I’m talking about expensive prizes that are worthy of a serious competition. At the AppForum2014 Hack-a-Thon, the top 15 developers with the most points will claim their very own Elite Edition AR.Drone2.0. Watch this YouTube video to check out some shots of the drone in action. 

This 12-hour overnight collaborative shin-dig gets started at 7:00 pm on Tuesday, September 9 and rolls right on through to Wednesday, September 10 at 7:00 am. (Be sure to reserve your hotel room with this schedule in mind.) All challengers will then have 10 minutes between 9:00 am and 2:00 pm. to present their application to our panel of judges. The judges will score and vote on the most innovative application build for one—or more—of Motorola’s mobile computing devices in the target-market categories of Retail, Manufacturing, Healthcare, Education, Warehouse, Logistics, and Public Safety. Winners will be announced during the last general session of AppForum2014.

If you’ve never been to a Hack-a-Thon, now is your chance. Even if you’re not the competitive type, come over just to hang out and watch. You can get a charge from the energy in the room while you watch genius at work. Sign up for AppForum2014 and the Hack-a-Thon today. Registrations are approaching triple digits, so be sure to reserve your space without delay.