The results are in: rapidBizApps Hackathon #4 @ iPap

Dec. 26, 2013 - PRLog -- Innovation through Hackathons

Ideas flooded the iPAP academy, S.R. Nagar on 5^th Oct, 2013 where rapidBizAppss conducted their prestigious “Hackathon 4.0.” This Hackathon being 4^th in the series of hackathons conducted by rapidBizApps, has become a platform for the enthusiastic geeks to cross the chasm from Ideas to Products ( or atleast MVPs – Minimum Viable Products) – Innovation in Motion!!!

Crazy, hungry people change the world – usually for the better. Think Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg in the Technology world. It all starts with an idea – sometimes crazy ideas. Not all ideas are made equal. It makes sense to build, deploy and iterate based on feedback received from uses. Hackathons are an excellent platform for budding entrepreneurs to vet and validate their ideas. The best organized hackathons tend to bring together people with a diverse set of skills to create products that have a “WOW” factor. In an App ecosystem, this means getting Developers, Graphic Designers, and UX Designers in a room and letting their creativity and energy loose.

“Hackathons excite passionate coders – people willing to try” said Pavan Maganti, the principal organizer of the Hackathon. “Hackathon 4.0 was oversubscribed to the point where we had to screen participants using a coding challenge. After all the screening, we shortlisted 12 for the final held at the iPap Academy, S.R. Nagar, Hyderabad. The competition started from 8 A.M and lasted till 8 P.M.”

The winner, Prudhvi Raj Pampana, said that he “made an app which helps the store keeper keep an up-to-date inventories of all their products in a Parse Cloud. I tried to simplify the user experience by integrating a barcode scanner to minimize the pain point of having to type in each entry.” Impressed by his skills in building the app in such a short period of time, rapidBizApps even extended a job offer pretty much on-the-spot. He readily accepted.

A hackathon is more than just a place to demonstrate what you know. It is a place where you get to learn new things, and meet other like-minded people. “I learnt how to use parse.com and map kit”, says Ragavandra Santosh, a participant that never heard about Parse before the hackathon. Most others shared similar experiences about learning something totally new.

“Being a company which strongly believes in innovation, we have always done our best to find and encourage people who can innovate” says CEO Satish Penmetsa. “Organizing Hackatons and Innovation Tournaments help us demonstrate our commitment to Innovation both within and outside rapidBizApps.  “We are a different kind of company. The difference was visible even in the Hackathon! We encouraged the use of Parse.com as a cloud storage option for Mobile apps. And, for the uninitiated, we had a bevy of volunteers from rapidBizApps available through the hackathon to help and educate whenever needed. By the end of the hackathon, most people got pretty comfortable with using Parse. Oh, and yes, we provide the food and drinks too”

The hackathon also provided an opportunity for participants to get to know others. In particular, volunteers from rapidBizApps. “At the end of the day, innovation accelerates in collaborative environments compared to secretive environments. So, opening up our doors to encourage cross-pollination of ideas is great even for us. I am really excited about the sorts of ideas that were worked on” said Krishna Kunam, CTO of rapidBizApps.

All the participants felt they did more than just code at the hackathon – they said they had fun and learnt quite a bit of stuff they’d use later on in their own projects. They got involved and connected! And, they feel like it is “okay to learn, code, try, fail, retry, win and have loads of fun. They should really call it Funnovation!” said Shitikha Navakhare. In the words of a few others sums it up:

”I would surely participate in Hackathon 5.0” – Raghavendra.

“We really had a good experience in that event, it is a real time experience what we haven't experienced it before” – Prudhvi Raj.

If you have not participated in a hackathon, you should. Folks can describe how beautiful the Taj is, or how exciting it is to run with the bulls at Pamplona, Spain. Imagination and description do injustice to the experience of seeing the Taj by yourself, and running with the bulls yourself. You have to participate in a hackathon yourself to experience the excitement when you can discover your ideas can really be brought to life! All you need is a platform that encourages it.

On participating in future hackathons

If you are stoked, and excited about participating in the next hackathon, watch our feeds @rapidBizApps ( Twitter), and our company sites on Facebook and LinkedIn. Also check out our website at http://www.rapidBizApps.com

We regularly organize hackathons at colleges and training institutes. If you wish to participate in the upcoming Hackathon, all that you need to do is to register for the according to the instructions provided. Moreover, if you are interested in getting this hackathon conducted in your college or training institute or want to partner with us for organizing hackathons, do mail us at love2hack@rapidBizApps.com

More Opportunities ahead!!!

We are also looking for exceptional iOS and Android developers that care about building intuitive and extremely reliable apps – for consumers and enterprises. If you think you fit the bill, shoot us your resume to jobs@rapidBizApps.com. Learn more about all the bleeding edge technologies and solutions we are working on at http://www.rapidBizAppss.com