Our first Virtual Hackathon, which takes place at TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco 2018 on September 5-7, is shaping up to be a world-class showdown. Thousands of the world’s best programmers, hackers, marketers, designers and developers will compete. One hundred teams will score free passes to Disrupt SF 2018, and one team will go on to win the $10,000 grand prize — but that’s not your only chance to win big.
Our sponsors keep coming up with challenging contests to test your hacking mettle (more on that in a minute). Together they’ve placed literally thousands of dollars and an impressive list of prizes on the table — and it’s yours for the winning — if you’ve got the right stuff.
If you want a chance of winning, you better get your backside in motion. The application for submitting your hack is August 2. Sign up right here, right now.
We’ve recruited some outstanding judges for the Virtual Hackathon, including folks from Pinterest and Slack. They’ll rate each submitted hack on a scale of 1 to 5 based on the idea’s quality, technical implementation, and the product’s potential impact.
Teams that score in the top 100 will receive up to five Innovator Passes to Disrupt SF. The top 30 teams from that group will move on to the semi-finals and demo their hack at Disrupt SF. The judges will then narrow the field, and 10 teams will demo their product to the world on The Next Stage. One “Best in Show” team will win the $10,000 grand prize and be crowned the first TC Disrupt Virtual Hackathon champion.
Let’s talk sponsor contests. We’ve told you about Sony Pictures and United Airlines. And we told you about the sweet cash you can win from contests sponsored by BYTON, TomTom and Viond, plus Visa and HERE Mobility.
Now we’re thrilled to tell you about this contest sponsored by Amazon.
Amazon Alexa
Alexa is Amazon’s cloud-based voice service available on tens of millions of devices from Amazon and third-party device manufacturers. With Alexa, you can build natural voice experiences that offer customers a more intuitive way to interact with the technology they use every day. The collection of tools, APIs, reference solutions and documentation make it easy for anyone to build with Alexa.
The Alexa Skills Kit (ASK) is a collection of self-service APIs, tools, documentation and code samples that makes it fast and easy for you to add skills to Alexa. ASK enables designers, developers and brands to build engaging skills and reach customers through tens of millions of Alexa-enabled devices. With ASK, you can leverage Amazon’s knowledge and pioneering work in the field of voice design.
Workshops: Head over to the Alexa Twitch channel to learn how to build engaging skills. We hold office hours every Tuesday at 1:00PM – 2:00PM PDT; get answers to any technical questions, discuss your skill use case and learn voice design best practices.
Sponsor Prizes:
- 1st Prize: $5,000 + 10 Echo Spot Devices
- 2nd Prize: $2,000 + 10 Echo Spot Devices
- 3rd Prize: $1,000 + 10 Echo Spot Devices
Don’t miss your opportunity to score free passes to TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco 2018 and to show the world just how freakishly good you are at creating and coding. And yes, win serious money and prizes in the process. Remember, sign up here and submit your hack by August 2. We can’t wait to see what you can do!
