Drexel University is hosting its second annual
Philly Codefest hackathon this weekend (February 22-23). The event is a nonstop coding marathon that will run throughout the night on Saturday, ending at 1 p.m. Sunday.
When the various programmers and hacking teams gather at Drexel's
URBN Center this Friday evening for a pre-Codefest meet-up, they'll learn about the event's purpose and its ultimate goal, which involves transforming various open-source datasets into online tools -- websites, apps, prototypes -- that offer actual solutions to real-world problems.
When the Codefest hosted its first event last April, it focused solely on potential health care solutions. But as the event's co-organizer, Abhiroop Das, explains, "If you want to affect large-scale open datasets in health care specifically, there are issues like privacy [to consider]." As a result, most of the applications that came out of the first hackathon revolved around personal health.
This time around, "we want to give everyone an opportunity," says Das. "We want to highlight all the talent here in Philadelphia. It'll be more of a traditional hackathon."
Along with health and patient care, datasets provided to the coders will range from cyber security and data science to government and civic solutions. The Codefest's 20-person advisory board, which includes the city's Chief Data Officer Mark Headd and
University City Science Center CEO Steve Tang, will judge the programmers' results and award prizes. Das says he's expecting well over 100 coders, including both students and professionals.
"[Hopefully], we'll see a good amount of projects stay alive beyond the hackathon, and go on to become, to some degree, a success," adds Das.
Writer: Dan Eldridge
Source: Abhiroop Das, Philly Codefest