WINOOSKI, Vt. -
"Hacker" isn't just a term for bad tech guys who might steal personal information but also one who organizes and builds computer code. Today at the "Hack VT" event...there was just one objective for 32 teams of hackers, create something to make Vermont better.
At 6 PM Saturday the hackers had been working for 24 hours straight. The hackers camped up at the Champlain Mill and by the time the next afternoon came around they felt…
"Exhausted," Hacker Greg Towne said with his team.
"You know it was a marathon."
At the end of it each group had created a tech idea that would help people experience Vermont.
"Often you don't think about right in your backyard there's tons of things to do," Towne said to a group of hackers.
His team's idea was an app that lists attractions across the state and rewards points for going to them.
"We met exactly our goal to develop for the night. Then we added some gravy on top of that and added some extra applications," Towne said.
The event was sponsored by MyWebGrocers, Fair Point Communications and Dealer.Com. It was the 2nd annual Hackathon and the turnout was encouraging to event organizers considering it's a 24 hour marathon.
"We were over a hundred sign-ups then lost a few towards the end," Dealer.com VP of Engineering and event organizer Bryan Landerman said.
24 hours of straight of work with little rest is pretty hard to get through but not when you think about the grand prize. $4,000 for the first place winner.
Teams had to present their projects to a panel of judges that determined who created the best application and would get the cash prize.
"whether we win or not you know it would be really nice but I don't know what other people are delivering," Towne said.
But creating the idea, centering it around Vermont and finishing it is prize enough in itself.
"We wanted to be able to give back as a technology community and do something for the state," Landerman said.
These are the teams that ended up winning the event:
Student prize - $2,000
Team Collateral Damage
3rd prize - $2,000
Team Bean
Find where you want to live in VT
2nd prize - $3,000
Team Dirty Data
App For VT prospective builders
1st prize - $4,000
Data Metamorphosis
Patrick Berkeley, Katie McCurdy, Adam Bouchard, Alan Peabody, Peter Brown
VT Business landscape
