Jul 26, 2013
Startups & Venture Capital
Nonprofit goes the distance with ‘hackathons’
Taryn Plumb, Special to the Journal
W. Marc Bernsau
At hack/reduce, the nonprofit center in Cambridge focused on big-data
exploration, the Boston area has a chance to “take back our place in
tech history,” says center co-founder Chris Lynch.
A major part of that effort is running events such as “hackathons,” in which groups of people with software expertise come together to write new applications over the course of a few hours or days.
In late June, hack/reduce hosted the first-ever hackathon with the U.S. Department of Defense, a 24-hour event that challenged its 100-plus participants to create nutritionally focused apps for soldiers.
The winners, a group of four UMass Lowell students — three computer science majors and one nutritional science major — garnered a $3,000 prize for creating the Android-based app MARTEE (Mobile Access Rations Tracking and Energy Expenditure). Serving as a training tool for soldiers going into the field, it includes full nutritional data on combat rations personalized to their height, weight and activities. The group drew, sketched and did the planning before the coding, said team member Mike Stowell; they then split the work while still collaborating on design choices, until “we finally reached the best product we could make in 24 hours.”
“If anything, I learned the limits of my focus and patience,” said fellow team member Jeremy Poulin. “I learned what it feels like to push myself beyond my own expectations. Our group basically didn’t stop working for the full 24 hours.”
Going forward, the goal is to host even more hackathons based around varying themes, executive director Adrienne Cochrane said. “We’re always looking to provide access to more and more interesting technologies and data,” she said.
According to IBM, 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are created every day — and 90 percent of the data now in the world has been created in the last two years. And more and more corporate, government and nonprofit organizations are looking to tap big data for marketing, research and insights.
Looking ahead, Lynch would like to see Boston generating a thousand data scientists a year, and within 10 years, no fewer than three, $1-billion companies in the space in the Boston area.
“We need more EMCs in New England if we’re going to make a difference in the tech community,” said Lynch, a partner at Atlas Venture in Cambridge who previously headed database tech firm Vertica Systems, which was bought by HP in 2011.
Hack/reduce is backed by more than $1 million from more than a dozen sponsors, including Google, Atlas Venture and Microsoft. Lynch says the center houses roughly 50 “residents” — people who have skills in big data and are approved by hack/reduce — per day. The residents, who get free desk space and access to technology and data sets, wrestle with the three basic barriers to solving big-data problems — scale, security and simplicity.
“We want to be flourishing with new opportunity that not only is good for residents of Massachusetts, but the world,” Lynch said. “We need to be a leader, and take back our place in tech history.”
Original story link.
A major part of that effort is running events such as “hackathons,” in which groups of people with software expertise come together to write new applications over the course of a few hours or days.
In late June, hack/reduce hosted the first-ever hackathon with the U.S. Department of Defense, a 24-hour event that challenged its 100-plus participants to create nutritionally focused apps for soldiers.
The winners, a group of four UMass Lowell students — three computer science majors and one nutritional science major — garnered a $3,000 prize for creating the Android-based app MARTEE (Mobile Access Rations Tracking and Energy Expenditure). Serving as a training tool for soldiers going into the field, it includes full nutritional data on combat rations personalized to their height, weight and activities. The group drew, sketched and did the planning before the coding, said team member Mike Stowell; they then split the work while still collaborating on design choices, until “we finally reached the best product we could make in 24 hours.”
“If anything, I learned the limits of my focus and patience,” said fellow team member Jeremy Poulin. “I learned what it feels like to push myself beyond my own expectations. Our group basically didn’t stop working for the full 24 hours.”
Going forward, the goal is to host even more hackathons based around varying themes, executive director Adrienne Cochrane said. “We’re always looking to provide access to more and more interesting technologies and data,” she said.
According to IBM, 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are created every day — and 90 percent of the data now in the world has been created in the last two years. And more and more corporate, government and nonprofit organizations are looking to tap big data for marketing, research and insights.
Looking ahead, Lynch would like to see Boston generating a thousand data scientists a year, and within 10 years, no fewer than three, $1-billion companies in the space in the Boston area.
“We need more EMCs in New England if we’re going to make a difference in the tech community,” said Lynch, a partner at Atlas Venture in Cambridge who previously headed database tech firm Vertica Systems, which was bought by HP in 2011.
Hack/reduce is backed by more than $1 million from more than a dozen sponsors, including Google, Atlas Venture and Microsoft. Lynch says the center houses roughly 50 “residents” — people who have skills in big data and are approved by hack/reduce — per day. The residents, who get free desk space and access to technology and data sets, wrestle with the three basic barriers to solving big-data problems — scale, security and simplicity.
“We want to be flourishing with new opportunity that not only is good for residents of Massachusetts, but the world,” Lynch said. “We need to be a leader, and take back our place in tech history.”
Original story link.
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