Anheuser-Busch Hackathon

[Aaron Ward]

This just came to my attention and am letting you guys know for anyone that might be interested. IT IS THIS WEEKEND - 15th - SATURDAY AND 16th - SUNDAY.

You need to be 21.

http://abhackathon.com/

I know some of your opinions on macro beer but this is an interesting opportunity to work with data sets that you typically wouldn't ever have access to. The prize is a trip to whatever place (which understandably may not have much value to you) but this could be a good resume/portfolio builder. I am also not sure what the next steps are after the hackathon given a successful hack.

A blurb from the site:

"Wanna hack for the #1 beer company in the world?

That’d be Anheuser-Busch. And they want to give up to 100 talented developers, designers, and entrepreneurs the chance to show off their skills at a 24-hour hackathon on May 16th and 17th in St. Louis, MO. Grand Prize winners will each get a ticket to BudLight's Up For Whatever epic weekend of unexpected fun in Catalina Island, California. Oh, and you must be 21 years of age or older to participate. Beer is involved, obviously.

Developers will be asked to build mobile applications that promote Anheuser-Busch’s core brand, Bud Light. Use AB data, external APIs, SDKs and other tools from today’s biggest innovators in technology to create a truly marvelous hack."

[Brad Tissi]

This could probably be answered by just watching one, but hackathons interest me, though I don't have a lot of developer skills. A little C++, javascript, html, have used tasker/plugins a fair bit, etc, but nothing that I feel would actually help with a programming project like this.

Are my expectations too high for participants? Do we not really need polished skills to be able to compete, rather a decent idea?

[Aaron Ward]

I am also not very familiar with hackathons; the description they've given of it is somewhat vague.

I would think that anyone with SOME coding skill and business operations understanding could be able to contribute.

There is probably some sort of app framework they'll want things to use to make things easier.