Could a mobile app solve the climate crisis? That’s what a bunch of developers and tech-minded thinkers are hoping to find out this weekend at HackVT, a 24-hackathon taking place in Burlington.
The event, now in its fifth year, is organized by LaunchVT, an offshoot of the Lake Champlain Chamber of Commerce. So far about 80 participants, across 19 registered teams, are expected to participate in the fast-paced development competition, “Hack the Climate: VT.”
On Thursday afternoon, 142 data sets, most of them supplied by state agencies, utilities and partners, including the Agency of Natural Resources, the Vermont Energy Investment Corp., the Vermont Climate Assessment, and Green Mountain Power, were posted with links to the raw data and application programming interfaces (APIs), on HackVT’s website.
“We were really thinking about in what areas Vermont really shines, in terms of our business industry, tech and entrepreneurship,” said Katie Taylor, director of workforce development and entrepreneurship at the Chamber of Commerce. “We wanted to highlight that we’re really on the forefront of innovation and give people the opportunity to do even more.”
She said most of the supplied data was already in the public domain, but some data sets, especially energy-related ones, were compiled specifically for the event.
HackVT was run by local tech company MyWebGrocer for the first three years. Rob Hale, the principal software engineer at the company, said he was relieved that the Chamber is holding the event.
“When we started it, we were equally interested in celebrating the local tech community and we were interested in who was out there, and kind of looking for candidates to snag,” he said. “So it was equal parts celebrating the community and just kind of getting to know the community better.”
The first year was a hack to develop grocery services, like the kind MyWebGrocer markets, but after 2010 it started dealing with bigger-picture themes. Last year, when Green Mountain Power organized the event, for example, the theme was energy.
This year’s focus, with the volumes of gathered data, “is more reminiscent of what we saw in the second and third years, where it was an app that was done for the state,” he said. “It gives them a lot of information to choose from and see what comes out of that.”
No longer camping out in the empty retail shops at the Champlain Mill, participants in HackVT this year will work out of the Vermont Center for Emerging Technologies, an 11,000 square-foot state-of-the-art coworking and “accelerator” hub on Main Street, in Burlington that taps directly into the city’s super-high-speed gigabit Internet connection – which is primarily used by businesses and municipal offices at present.
Hale said that connection speed, as well as the inherent “excitement about having the community come together” that’s typical at hackathons, will likely ensure it’s a good year.
“The developers who show up at a hackathon are some of the more dedicated professionally… and they are exerting their technical prowess, and they all want to walk away with the big prize.”
The contest’s website promises $20,000 in combined cash and prizes, and Taylor said there are a number of raffles that will be drawn throughout the contest to keep spirits high – and two “minute to win-it” style challenges along the way.
