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Tell HN: Vancouver, Canada Startup Hackathon Oct 8-10th

52 points by mikeyur ↗ HN
Vancouver Hackers: I will be hosting a 100% free startup hackathon/startup weekend-style event October 8th through 10th at The Network Hub in downtown Vancouver.

Other events want to charge $75 per person to attend but we think money adds a big barrier for many hackers (especially those in college/university). If you're interested and free that weekend, I've setup a simple form to gauge interest and see if we can fill up the space.

We will be working out beer and caffeine sponsors but everyone will be responsible for their own food/snacks. The location is right on the edge of Gastown, endless options for places to eat and drink. We're also above a 24 hour Waves Coffee and right across the street from a Blenz Coffee.

Please apply if you can come out for the whole weekend. You can pick up a new project or work on existing ones in a great environment.

I've had a quick chat with Colin Percival (cperciva) and he will be coming out on Saturday night to give a talk.

Event page: http://verev.com/vancouver-hackathon/

16 comments

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cperciva
I've had a quick chat with Colin Percival (cperciva) and he will be coming out on Saturday night to give a talk.

I'm not 100% certain what the talk is going to be about yet, but I'll be there and speaking about something. :-)

I may also be able to stick around to provide some free security / cryptography consultation if there's any interest.

mikerogerz
Applied. Sounds like a great opportunity to meet some other hackers from around Vancouver.
dflock
I'm back in the UK for 2 weeks out of the last year and I miss this. D'Oh.
mikeyur
Based on the feedback we've gotten so far, a lot of people are interested in this kind of event. If everything goes well we will definitely be doing something similar again in the future.
pshc
This event... it was made for me!
mikeyur
I look forward to seeing you there :)

Do you mind passing this around to other Vancouver hackers you know? I posted this at a terrible time and it fell the off the homepage already (huge fail on my part).

pshc
Damn. I'll do what I can.
[dead] pshc
Damn. I'll do what I can.
nickmolnar2
Nice work, Michael. The city needs more events like this.
mthoms
Hmmm, sounds like it's going to be right before I launch my App. Might be a good way to get some feedback and meet other hackers.
[dead] briandu
I would be stoked to attend this event, but I think that Startup Weekend may be scheduling an event in Vancouver at Bootup Labs that same weekend. http://vancouver.startupweekend.org (It doesn't seem like they are marketing it very well, though. I only noticed because I had attended a Startup Weekend elsewhere, and have been following to see when it was coming to Vancouver)

Definitely keen on this type of event, and happy that the price is lower for this Hackathon than for the startupweekend.org event, but I've been waiting all summer for this type of event to come to Vancouver. And now we have two of them overlapping on the same weekend?

nickmolnar2
OK. So, I just put together that this event is competing head-to-head with Startup Weekend. http://vancouver.startupweekend.org

That seems a little rude. I'm with you that $75 tickets are steep, and hacker unfriendly, but it seems like 2 competing hackathons are going to spread our city's finite dev talent really thin. I can't see how this leads to a better experience for SW or your event.

Wouldn't it be better to have spread these events out? If people think SW is too expensive, they'll wait. If they want to contribute to both, shouldn't they have the option?

jonchui
Hmm... definitely agree with nick. The hacker community in Vancouver is already so small that there's no need to do both on the same weekend.

I also agree $75 is quite steep, so I've talked to the SW folks about working together somehow & getting a better discount for scrappy entrepreneurs & hackers (while preserving the high $75 for business & "marketing" folk who tend to hijack hacker events here in Vancouver). They're all for it!

So far, we got a 20% discount off for Startup Digest readers (code: startupdigest), but I'm sure we can get even more.

yrashk
agree, hard to choose where to go to :(