Hack Midwest, KC’s largest coding competition, will bring together over 300 of the region’s most talented software developers this summer to build apps for a chance at thousands in prizes.
The fast-paced 24-hour hackathon is happening July 21-22 at host ShotTracker’s Kansas City headquarters.
“We’re excited to host KC’s largest hackathon and help spur innovation in the region,” said Davyeon Ross, Co founder of ShotTracker. “We can’t wait to see all the ideas people come up with, especially those built for our data-rich ShotTracker platform.”
Participants will form team at the event or come with pre-assembled teams. Organizers expect over 50 teams to compete in building web and mobile apps that solve business problems across industries including fintech, healthcare, sports, media, manufacturing, transportation and more.
New this year is a ‘company challenge’ category, which will allow teams from top regional corporations and startups to compete head to head and win a special edition 3D Printed Hack Midwest trophy.
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“This year, we decided to create an extra corporate challenge where large companies and startups can compete against each other,” said Michael Gelphman, KCITP founder and Hack Midwest organizer. “They come as an official team and then they’re entered into their own category and they can compete for bragging rights.”
A panel of executive judges will review the apps, judging on multiple criteria including creativity, completeness and usefulness. Thousands of dollars in prizes including Amazon Alexa, drones and other tech gadgets will be awarded to winning teams across multiple categories
“Adding to Kansas City’s momentum as a leading tech hub, Hack Midwest gives passionate software engineers the opportunity to showcase their skills and inspire new ideas that could change the future.” said Gelphman. “We’d love to see people from Omaha or Des Moines and other parts of the Prairie come down for this and be a part of this amazing community and experience.”
Gelphman said the larger vision of the hackathon is for the event to be the first step in cultivating an innovative or entrepreneurial mindset for people new to the scene.
“If people don’t work at a startup or aren’t an entrepreneur, this gives them the freedom to get outside of the day-to-day tools and languages that they work on,” said Gelphman. “ They get to create new ideas and they see the potential of what can happen when you have a very short time period to create something.”
