Hackathon at Startup Asia Bandung: 600 Developers, 128 teams, 24 Hours of Fun

Our Startup Asia Bandung Hackathon finally kicked off yesterday. More than 600 developers have signed up, forming 128 teams who will code and design at the Landmark Convention Hall in the city for 24 hours. Though we had some problems with the internet connection (which is very common in Indonesia) everyone was still able to code their hearts out to beat the challenges set by our sponsors.

The event started smoothly with a lot of developers coming early to the event. Some developers came with their teammates while others chose to come alone and partner with one of the available teams there. Surprisingly, most of the participants aren’t even from Bandung. There are folks coming from Jakarta, Bogor, and Depok. We even had one participant who flew all the way from Japan to compete in this hackathon. Here are some interesting facts about the participants we’ve gathered so far:

The All Female Team of I-Tech

There are around 50 participants coming from the Jakarta-based I-Tech community. The all-female team from I-Tech said that the high number of participants made the event both fun and intimidating. This is the first hackathon for the girls, and they hope to learn a lot from this competition. They plan to build a banking-related app here. They’re not yet sure what challenge they want to beat.

Keisuke Taisuke Who Flew All the Way From Japan!

We also have an interesting participant who came all the way from Japan to compete in the hackathon: Keisuke. This guy came to Bandung alone and was looking for a UX designer. He is looking to build an interesting Android game.

Keisuke on the right

Student Developers

We talked to two groups that come from the University of Indonesia. Not only did they share the same table, but they also shared the same enthusiasm for the competition – they all looked very busy with their laptops even before the event had started. The teams are looking to build a traditional mobile game called “Gobak Sodor” and a web-based application to educate children with games. They will go with the flow regarding the challenge they plan to beat.

All-Mac Users Team