First Defense-Focused Hackathon in Tampa

TAMPA, Fla. - Oct. 8, 2015 - PRLog -- (October 06, 2015 – Tampa, FL) The Central Florida chapter of the Military Open Source Software organization (Mil-OSS), a group that advocates for open technologies, will hold their first Hackathon on October 23rd, 24th and 25th at SOFWERX. SOFWERX is the unique collaboration facility created by U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) in the historic Tampa Armature Works building just to the north of Water Works Park. The event is free to attend and open to industry, government. military, students and academia.

As the first defense-focused Hackathon in the Tampa Bay area, this unique event offers our local experts the opportunity build prototypes to address real-world, critical military challenges, like novel displays for tactical urban combat, collaborative 3D modeling for advanced rapid manufacturing, automated Cloud Security, and public data scraping and analysis.

“You don’t have to be a software developer to participate. The way we’ve crafted these challenges, teams will need to look at the problem from all angles to succeed. Including graphical design and user experience” stated Jeff Young, one of the founders of the Mil-OSS group in Central Florida.

The event will kick off with in-depth briefings for each of the challenges by experts in those areas as well as an explanation of the judging criteria and rules. Teams will have the chance to ask these experts questions before the kick off concludes followed by a reception to network with members of the Defense community and academia.

At the end of the final day, teams will present their solutions to a panel of technology experts in the industry.  Winners will be chosen on October 25th at 5:00 pm followed by a reception to congratulate all participants.

The expected outcomes will represent real solutions to problems that exist within the Defense industry as well as Non-Defense industry. This will allow Tampa’s best and brightest to work with the latest technologies in solving real word challenges.

This sponsored event will serve as a fundraiser for the Special Operations Warrior Foundation. More information about the sponsors and how to register can be found at http://mil-oss.org/tampa-hackathon.


About Mil-OSS

Mil-OSS connects and empowers an active community of civilian and military open source software and hardware developers across the United States.  The grassroots movement is a collection of diverse patriots that work for and with the Department of Defense and believe in adopting open technology innovation philosophies to effectively defend our nation. More information about Mil-OSS, their regional chapters, and chapter events can be found online at http://mil-oss.org/.

About SOFWERX

SOFWERX is a 3,000 square foot open floor collaboration facility with partitions enabling rapid reconfiguration. SOFWERX primary purpose is for collaboration and innovative problem solving. Priority is given to events that require facilitation for creative problem solving and that require the full capability of SOFWERX tech tools. Non-DoD groups are welcome on a non-interference basis.

About Special Operations Warrior Foundation

The Special Operations Warrior Foundation ensures full financial assistance for a post-secondary degree from an accredited two or four-year college, university, technical, or trade school; and offers family and educational counseling, including in-home tutoring, to the surviving children of Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps special operations personnel who lose their lives in the line of duty. The Special Operations Warrior Foundation also provides immediate financial assistance to severely wounded and hospitalized special operations personnel. More information about SOWF can be found online at http://specialops.org/.