Windows Phone 7 Hackathon & Workshop

Time Remaining:

3/27/2011 3:00:00 PM

Submission Deadline:

3/27/2011 12:00:00 PM

About This Event
Schedule Details

Map It

March 26, 2011 9:00 AM to March 27, 2011 3:00 PM

ITA TechNexus
200 S. Wacker Drive
Suite 1500
Chicago, Illinois

About This Event

Developers: caffeinate and get ready to dominate! Bring your laptops, phones, gadgets and dev tools to the ITA for the 36-hour Windows Phone 7 Hackathon. Develop a Windows Phone 7 app, present it and compete for your share of over $4,000 in prizes. Winners will walk away with mad props and cool loot.

Even in you don't hack, stop by during the hackathon competition and take in a workshop or presentation given by our special guests. If you plan to attend the workshops but not hack, please register here.

"P-push it real good!"
Push notifications for Windows Phone 7

In this presentation Ben Farmer will start by giving an overview of the push notification system for Windows Phone 7. Next he'll go through a couple of demos that show what your users will see when they receive each of the three types of push notifications . Finally he'll wrap it up with a walkthrough of the code required get it all set up in your app.

"JSON REST API's for Windows Phone 7"
Creating and consuming lightweight JSON Services for Windows Phone 7 applications.

MVC 3 provides a quick and easy way to setup JSON based REST service API's for your application to consume. Jacob Gable will walk through creating a JSON service with .Net MVC 3 and show how to efficiently consume the JSON service in your Windows Phone 7 application. These techniques will transfer over to any JSON based API; including Twitter, Flickr or Facebook.

"Using Windows Phone 7 Sensors & Microcontrollers"

In this presentation Lwin and Min Maung will go into the fundementals of sensors available to the Windows Phone 7, and will provide examples of what is available. After that they'll delve into microcontrollers and how to get additional features and sensor data to the Windows Phone 7 via external microcontrollers. Lwin and Min will bring in a robot rover to demonstrate real life application of the sensors available to the Windows Phone 7.

Over $4000 in cash and prizes

Prize Categories

Best Overall Application
Best Design
Best Student Submission (Active students must comprise at least 50% of team)

Rules

Hackathon participants must be registered for the hackathon via Hackatopia.
Entries may only win in one category.
Applications should not be under development prior to the contest kickoff. Pre-existing code libraries and artifacts are allowed, but the spirit of the event encourages participants to build what they can in 30 hours.
The development tools, frameworks and application focus are entirely up to the participants.
Participants are expected to bring all tools and software necessary to build their entry. Organizers will provide food, caffeine and power strips (but you might want to bring your own power strip just in case we run out).
If a category has no entries, that category becomes 1st (or 2nd or 3rd) runner-up to the best overall.
Rules are subject to change at the discretion of the Hackathon coordinators.

Details

Over $4000 in cash and prizes

Prize Categories

Best Overall Application
Best Design
Best Student Submission (Active students must comprise at least 50% of team)

Rules

Hackathon participants must be registered for the hackathon via Hackatopia.
Entries may only win in one category.
Applications should not be under development prior to the contest kickoff. Pre-existing code libraries and artifacts are allowed, but the spirit of the event encourages participants to build what they can in 30 hours.
The development tools, frameworks and application focus are entirely up to the participants.
Participants are expected to bring all tools and software necessary to build their entry. Organizers will provide food, caffeine and power strips (but you might want to bring your own power strip just in case we run out).
If a category has no entries, that category becomes 1st (or 2nd or 3rd) runner-up to the best overall.
Rules are subject to change at the discretion of the Hackathon coordinators.

Judges

Dave Bost
Dave is a Developer Evangelist with Microsoft and co-host of the Thirsty Developer Podcast. Dave has been a Software Developer and Solution Architect for over 15-years. Prior to joining Microsoft, Dave cut his technical teeth working with many Fortune-500 companies as a technical mentor and consultant.

Dave started his technical passion back in the days of the Commodore-64 when he wrote his first assembly-language program that produced a hot-air balloon to sail across his Commodore 1701 Video Monitor. From there, he was hooked. This led to a Computer Science degree at Northern Illinois University, where he soon started his professional career in the Unix/C world and a short time later, starting his Microsoft developer career. For the past decade, Dave has spent most of his time building web-based applications for the Microsoft platform. As a technologist, Dave doesn't spend all his time in the Microsoft world as he likes to spend his time dabbling with the latest technologies, tools and movements coming out of the software industry.

Outside of his professional life, Dave enjoys discovering new music with his Zune Pass, defending the universe against 13-year olds on Xbox Live, and playing golf (whenever his wife lets him). You can read Dave's blog or listen to the Thirsty Developer Podcast.

Clark Sell
Name a role in the software industry, and Clark has probably played it. He started as a Y2K tester and has since worked as a developer, lead, “build monkey,” solutions architect and product manager. His professional sweet spot however, lies in designing and building software solutions that make life easier – there’s no chance for boredom and constant opportunities for growth. Clark is MCSD certified and received top Microsoft honors with the Circle of Excellence Award. He’s a graduate of Western Illinois University and before joining Microsoft in 2005, he served as a solutions architect at Allstate Insurance Company. As a senior developer evangelist and Visual Studio team system ranger, Clark brings a good dose of humor and a zest for life to the podium.

You can hear Clark’s technical musings on “The Smackdown” at DeveloperSmackdown.com and The Thirsty Developer podcast – or find him getting grease under his nails in the garage. Clark’s a muscle car fanatic who’s currently finishing a body-off restoration of his 1970 Chevrolet Camaro while driving his 1968 Camaro SS.

You can find Clark's blog at http://csell.net

Brian Gorbett
Brian Gorbett is Director Central Region Startups, responsible for engaging technology startups and those that foster the growth of startups around developer tools and platform technologies. He mentors entrepreneurs building on the latest technologies and advises tech startups on the latest software architecture.

He is currently leading the startup initiative for the Central Region of the United States for Microsoft and actively seeks out passionate technology startups with innovating ideas. An active developer and technologist, Gorbett has contributed to national publications on software technologies and still tries to find time to get his ideas into code. Gorbett currently mentors at Excelerate in Chicago and advises a small group of high-growth startups.

Before joining Microsoft, Gorbett managed a team of developers and designers responsible for delivering next generation rich Internet applications. Gorbett resides in Chicago, IL, but can be found on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, BrianGorbett.com, or just about any other social network.

Speakers

During the hackathon competition, join in on a workshop or presentation given by our special guests:

Ben Farmer
Ben Farmer is a senior developer at Clarity Consulting where he helps clients build applications with ASP.Net, WPF, Silverlight, Windows Phone 7 and other .Net platforms. He has experience in several verticals including ecommerce, retail, and consumer applications. His most recent project was leading the team of developers that built Kraft’s iFood Assistant mobile application on the Windows Phone 7 platform.

Jacob Gable
Jacob Gable is a Professional Software Developer, Amateur Philosopher and Part Time Young Punk who works at Clarity Consulting in Chicago, IL. Jacob has been working with Windows Phone 7 since the early betas and his scrabble clone "Mo Words" was released in October.

Lwin Maung
Lwin Maung is a developer and principal at Accolade Systems, a Chicagoland IT consulting startup. He is a developer of mobile applications by night,but during the day he secures servers, enable VOIP and SIP solutions, and designs networks for small businesses. Lwin teamed up with his brother, Min, to win several hackathons. Together, they've developed multiple cross-platform mobile apps, and are soon to release a novel turn-by-turn GPS navigation system on Windows Phone 7.

Min Maung
In his "spare" time, Min Maung is a skilled, cross-platform mobile developer, aggressive hackathon competitor and presenter. Enamored with the Window Phone UI, Min co-created the first Metro UI launcher for Android, featured on Engadget. He's soon to publish "Accolade Navigator," a turn-by-turn, visually compelling GPS navigation system for the Windows Phone 7. When he's not coding, he's building robots. Monday through Friday, you'll find Min at a leading, privately-held payroll and HR sofware solutions company, cranking out .Net code and writing apps in ASP.Net, Silverlight, and other .Net solutions.