Public Journalism Club and Microsoft Innovation Center Armenia, the organizers of Hackathon[YAN] Yerevan contest which will take place on 17-18 December 2011, have received over 50 applications from teams willing to take part in the competition. 50 teams submitted projects that aim at solving the issues of Yerevan, Armenia’s capital.

Projects will be hacking issues related to health, transportation, education, environment, problems of disabled people living in the city and tourism. Hachathon [YAN] Yerevan 2011 is dedicated to solving the problems that Yerevan and city’s inhabitants deal with.

The result of this Hachathon is most likely to be the creation of a number of prototypes for ready-made projects that can be implemented not only by municipal government but also by the structures and circles focused on the city issues, as well as through active engagement of people.

Hackathon[YAN] Yerevan 2011 contest will start on 17 December and will last 24 hours. During the round-the-clock contest, the teams will have to develop and publicly present their programs, applications, mobile solutions and web sites or their prototypes/demo versions to the panel of judges.

Prizes

• Best project. Best project will receive a prize from Yerevan Town Hall.
• Three best projects developed on the basis of Microsoft technology will receive cash prizes from Microsoft Innovation Center (1 million Armenian Drams= 2600 USD, 500, 000 Armenian Drams =1300 USD and 300,000 Armenian Drams = 755 USD respectively, which is about).
• Three best mobile solutions will receive cash prizes (500,000 Armenian Drams = 1300 USD each) from Enterprise Incubator Foundation in Armenia.
• Best social project will receive a cash prize of 350,000 Armenian Drams = 900 USD from Cronimet Charity Foundation. Best Media and Society project will receive an implementation grant from Alternative Resources in Media Programme.

Apart from the abovementioned prizes, the participating teams will also receive runner-up prizes and certificates from GNC Alfa Company, Public Journalism Club and Hacks/Hackers.

The panel of judges will have the right to dismiss the announcement of winners in several categories in case there are no projects complying with the terms and standards of the contest.

The deadline for submission of applications was 15 November 2011.

The organizers of the event have held over a dozen meetings with students, representatives of IT industry and public sector in universities presenting the Hackathon and helping interested applicants to form teams.

On November 30 and December 1, Karl Davies-Barrett, DPE technical Lead for CEE and Multi-Country, delivered workshop sessions designed specifically for the participants of Hackathon [YAN] Yerevan 2011 competition. Workshop sessions provided the teams with relevant knowledge on methodology of Microsoft cloud solutions software development as well as current trends and peculiarities of software development for Windows phones.

Purpose of Hackathon[YAN] Yerevan2011: To create an opportunity for creative and innovative people to collaboratively build programs aimed at resolving Yerevan’s issues; to build collaborative atmosphere for both programmers and other specialists for implementing innovative ideas and initiating social reforms; to encourage collaboration between representatives of the IT sector and other fields aimed at the implementation of projects and ideas serving the public interest. The contest is supported by Yerevan Town Hall, Microsoft, Counterpart International Representative Office in Armenia, Enterprise Incubator Foundation, leading telecommunications and information technology companies, media organizations. Media sponsors of Hackathon[YAN] Yerevan 2011 are PanarmenianNet Online News Publication and Arka News Agency.

Contact us if you want to learn more about Hackathon[YAN] Yerevan 2011 at info@pjc.am.