Unofficial Website of Philly Enterprise Hackathon
The Community of Software Developers in Philadelphia
There is an amazing community of software developers in the Philadelphia area, now ranked one of the top 10 cities for tech startups! Created by one of the most vibrant and concentrated set of higher education institutions in the world, these talented developers are harnessing the newest waves of technology to revolutionize the world.
with Enterprise Companies in Philadelphia
Big companies have a unique opportunity to tackle big problems—like curing cancer, or making water available to every human on the planet, or making sure people have enough money to live comfortably in retirement. The Greater Philadelphia’ region is home to some of the most vibrant 21st century game-changing industries like Healthcare, Financial Services, Media & Telecom, Government Tech, and Physical Infrastructure.
New $25K Challenge Added for Water & Utilities!
Press Coverage: Calling All Developers: Enterprises Need Your Help
Prizes
For one winner in each track (Life Sciences, Infrastructure, Water & Utilities)
- A $25,000 or $50,000 grant towards implementation of their product or program
- $1,500 Amazon Web Services Credit
- Up to three months of desk space, business support and advisory services at VentureF0rth, a healthcare-focused incubator in Philadelphia
- Mentoring Services from the Sponsors and local entrepreneurs
- The opportunity to present their concept to Sponsors at the end of mentoring for potential implementation by the sponsor.
Connection
Developers need customers and companies need innovation. It’s a no-brainer that these two groups should be working closely together, but for some reason the connection hasn’t been made to date here in Philadelphia.
The Philly Enterprise Hackathon sets out to shift this paradigm by identifying some really big problems facing companies that developers could be rewarded for solving—and maybe even turn into viable products or companies.
Structure
Many Hackathons encourage developers to come up with their own ideas for useful products. The problem with that is that there may or may not be customers after you do a lot of work. The Philly Enterprise Hackathon brings the enterprises in front of the developers with specific problems they need solved—accelerating the likelihood of the first customer.
Enterprises will present their “problems” and challenge the developers to come up with a viable solution.
Hacking will occur over a two and half week period – with scheduled meet-ups in between.
Five finalists will be selected from all registered teams
A demo night – with a judging panel will take place
A winner and a runner up from each track will be selected
The two winners will each receive $50,000 along with incubation at VentureF0rth for 4 weeks with the company, a venture capitalist mentor and a local entrepreneur mentor.
At the end of the process, the enterprises get the right to run a version 1.0 of the developer’s product. Information on the terms and conditions and investment funding that the developers may decide to pursue to start a company.
Everybody Wins!
They are excited because this is an opportunity for two important communities in Philadelphia to work together. They are excited because this collaboration reinforces what everyone already knows—Philadelphia has talent and access to customers—two of the most important ingredients for building a successful business.
They are excited because enterprises have an opportunity to get some incredibly innovative solutions for some very big problems. In addition, developers are rewarded, recognized and supported for their work.
Maybe all of this goodness will create the next great enterprise software company!