Editor’s note: If you’re in the SF area, join us tomorrow for our next hackathon. There are a few spots left. See Eric's note at the end of this post.
Last Thursday’s Google Apps Hackathon in New York brought together 70 developers to create cool new applications using Google Apps APIs. The varied field of talent included individual developers, small teams from companies like ShuttleCloud, and a group of technically inclined educators from the non-profit New Visions for Public Schools.
Ten Google engineers were on hand to help participants with tips and information about specific APIs. Among them, Dan Holevoet and Alain Vongsouvanh from Mountain View shared their Calendar and Contacts API expertise, while Shradda Gupta and Gunjan Sharma traveled from India to help field questions about admin and domain management APIs.
At this hackathon, competitors had two categories to choose from: building new applications using Google Apps APIs, and integrating Google Apps APIs with an existing app. The various groups entered and demonstrated a total of sixteen apps across the two categories, including:
For the new apps category, the panel of judges settled first prize on “AlphaSheet,” a simple but streamlined app using a custom spreadsheet function to fill in values from Wolfram Alpha queries. “Fareshare” took top honors in the second category for integrating Google Calendar in a mobile app that helps New Yorkers share cab rides.
It’s great to see developers join forces and have a great time hacking up new apps at events like this one. An impressive amount of knowledge-sharing occurred, and everyone walked away with new ideas and skills to take back to their work in the realms of business or education.
If you missed this event, don’t worry — the future holds more hackathons, including the upcoming event tomorrow (Dec 6th) at Google’s Mountain View, CA campus from 1:00pm - 8:00pm PST. If you’re located in Europe, we have a series of events planned over the next few months.
