HackathonCLT is a FREE event at which teams of programmers, designers and developers collaborate to solve a problem and compete for cash prizes. They say “It’s one part party, one part work-your-butt-off overnight battle against the clock.”
This year HackathonCLT takes place at Discovery Place. It starts on Friday, March 22nd, 2019, at 5 p.m., and ends on Saturday, March 23rd, 2019, at 2 p.m.
It’s the biggest all night and day developer party on the East Coast and it’s FREE. However you need to sign up in advance.
You can register as a team or an individual. If you’d like to participate on a team but you don’t have a team, there will be a couple of pre-Hackathon mixers that you can attend to meet co-hackers.
Ideally each team will include three people: a designer, a coder and a presenter. All participants must be 18 or older and must stay all night.
HackathonCLT MMXIX will have over $30,000 in prizes up for grabs.
No participant walks away empty handed at HackathonCLT. There’s lots of swag for everyone.
Here are some of the problems in past years:
- Hackathon MMXVI challenged hackers to assist Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina with their recent expansion, focusing on increasing donations and efficiency and effectiveness in distribution.
- Hackathon MMXVIII challenged hackers to create for Charlotte Housing Authority a data-driven solution for Charlotte residents in need of affordable housing.
- Hackathon MMXV challenged hackers to predict, model, plan (biz) and present the best, most attractive and most creative ways to deliver groceries to customers…some non-traditional ways.
- Hackathon MMXIV challeged hackers to use key shopper metrics from Harris Teeter & P&G, determine how Harris Teeter can increase their total number of trips per shopper and transaction total per trip on P&G products, thus reducing leakage to competitors.
- HackathonMMXIII challenged hackers to use Big Data for a retail optimization application.
This year, the challenge (to be announced the night of the event) will be related to making Charlotte the healthiest city in the world.
There are three categories:
H.A.C.K.
For Hackathon purists, this category demands hacking, coding and analytical talent where the winners will be judged on the quality of predictions and scalability of code (remember “Big Data Hackathon”) that is able to solve the business problem.
C.O.D.E.
Well, you got it. In order to win…you need to write some code. It can be anything from mobile applications to websites and everything in between, as long as it helps solve the business problem.
F.R.E.E.S.T.Y.L.E.
We believe that creativity can be hacked as well!! So this one is for the artists, the vagabonds who can’t code (yet) but still dream about making the world a better place with lateral, “never-before-thought-of” ideas. Deliver a killer-pres backed by a solid, scalable, business model that convincingly proves that you can solve the business problem, and you too can win.
Charlotte on the Cheap is a member of 
