Teams of hackers to fill Pauley for LA Hacks competition
By Chandini Soni
April 7, 2014 2:21 a.m.
A hackathon will take place in Pauley Pavilion this weekend, bringing together coders from across the country to collaborate and compete in building apps, websites and hardware.
LA Hacks aims to increase interest in the technological culture on the West Coast, said Hadar Dor, a fourth-year cognitive science student and the founder of the event, which is in its second year.
Hackathons are 24- to 48-hour marathons where teams of about four people work to build a piece of software or hardware. They were initially organized by companies as a way to recruit students.
In the last two years, however, Dor said the culture has changed to being more student-run.
“It is not about business. It’s about how cool (your product) was and how impressive it is that you made it over a weekend,” Dor said.
Although about 4,000 people have registered for the hackathon so far, organizers are only providing free transportation to a limited number of people, Dor said. Drawing from the trends of other hackathons, he said he expects this to restrict the total number of people who will attend the event to about 1,200.
Fifty people who are participating in the hackathon will do so through HackCamp, where beginners can learn how to code.
Sigma Eta Pi, the entrepreneurship fraternity, and Bruin Entrepreneurs are both organizing the event this weekend, which will cost about $250,000, said Dor, who is an executive board member of Sigma Eta Pi. The money is coming from corporate sponsorship such as Quixey and Cisco, which will be present at the event as well, he said.
About 100 reserved tickets for UCLA students to attend the event will open Monday. Students can register online on the LA Hacks website.
Compiled by Chandini Soni, Bruin senior staff.
