ApexSQL was privileged to be one of silver sponsors of 2015 Hackathon, held at the Faculty of Electronic Engineering, in the city of Nis, Serbia, from the 14th to 15th of November.
The organizer of the Hackathon SICEF did a great job with this event. A lot of people were there, we had a great cooperation with SICEF, and we hope that this cooperation will continue for years to come
The ApexSQL crew hosted a presentation and lecture about the company that included: Who we are, What we do, What it is like to work at ApexSQL, among other topics
Students, participants of the hackathon and other people who were present, found our company very interesting. Participants of hackathon and visitors were able to talk with us about our company values and business.
Our partner Microsoft Corporation had representatives from Microsoft development center Serbia, they attended our company presentation. We had a chance to talk with them and we get positive impressions to our participation in this year hackathon.
What is a Hackathon?
A Hackathon presents a timed (in our case twenty four hours) team competition of developers who are tasked with creating applications to a particular specification. The topic is unknown to the participants until the start of the competition, and is announced at the opening ceremony. Each team gets its own room to work, equipped with additional monitors and board, as well as Internet access via the university network.
This is the second Hackathon organized by the student organization SICEF in cooperation with the University of Electronic Engineering in Nis, Serbia.
The theme of this year’s competition was: How to help refugees? The goal of the application is to help refugees find their way in other countries, to find out where and from whom they can receive appropriate assistance.
Selected teams for 2015
From a large number of applicants, over 20 registered teams, the following top 8 teams were selected:
MDMTA, RAFNut, Chicken on a RAF, Open System & Security Lab, Invitious, Amigosi, Autocomplete Squad, ClickByClick.
Most of teams were from Nis, Belgrade and Novi Sad but there was also one team from Croatia.
Competition rules
- 4 members teams
- Time allowed is 24 hours
- Competitors will work to applications of general type, and the topic will be specified before the start of the competition
- Applications can be done in any technology
- Competitors are required to provide their own laptop for working, and SICEF will provide additional monitors to each of them
- Competitors will be allowed to use the Internet
- For the evaluation of applications, jury will be in charge
- Criteria for evaluation will be: design, usability, code quality, and innovation
Prizes
First prize:
4 x Syma X5C Explorers drone – quadcopter with HD camera
Second prize:
4 x HDD External 2.5" 2TB Toshiba Canvio Basics
Third Prize:
4 x backpack for laptop 17.3" NTB 5165 Xwave
Open System & Security Lab from Croatia was the winner in this contest
Open System & Security Lab created two applications, one was a web app and the other one a mobile (android) app. They had the idea to create some kind of social network where on one side you have people who have resources (food, water, shelter, possibility to transport someone) and are willing to share and on another side you have refugees who are in need of those resources. Using that “social” network they can connect and donate/receive, see maps of the country they are in, view news about the situation around them and share info about missing persons. That last one was particularly interesting because guys came up with a great idea to make the /404 page of their web app as missing person page, instead of it showing famous “error 404, page not found”. There you could see pictures of people who are missing, contact info if you’ve seen them or you place some of your friends/family who is missing from your group. The applications were intuitive and well designed, fact not missed by the judges
See you next year!
November 25, 2015
