Opportunity Hack 2015 San Jose

Our third annual Opportunity Hack will open at 8:00 a.m. on October 3rd.  At Opportunity Hack you can network, share ideas and build solutions that enable impact and social innovation! Come with an idea or join a team that will hack solutions for any of the problem statements listed by our partnering non-profits!

Check in will be from 8:00 until 9:00 and breakfast will be served. Please note that ONLY THE FIRST 200 will be allowed to enter the door.

At 9:00 we'll have our opening keynote speaker.  We are excited to announce that Hillary Hartley is going to kick us off. Hillary is Deputy Executive Director @ 18F. Hillary Hartley is co-founder and lead creative at 18F, a digital services agency inside the General Services Administration. She came to the GSA as a Presidential Innovation Fellow in 2013, where she worked on the development of MyUSA.gov. Hillary has been working to make government more accessible and available online for nearly two decades, starting as a web designer for Arkansas.gov in 1997. As Director of Integrated Marketing for eGovernment provider NIC, Hillary helped NIC's 30 state government partners embrace new technology and concepts for a 21st century government. She speaks at events across the country, educating and evangelizing “government 2.0” and customer service/community engagement best practices for government. Twitter: @hillary

Then the fun begins!  Our non-profits will all have an opportunity to pitch their ideas to all the participants.  We'll be moving this along quickly so that we can move into team building.  You can bring a whole team, but if you don't we're pretty good at facilitating team formation.  This is the part of the program that people tend to be the most nervous about, but it all works out.  We've done it successfully a bunch of times and we'll make sure you get hooked up.

Please note that the pitch session scheduled to take place at 9:30 am is for only non-profits pitching ideas.. If you have an idea that you have would like to hack at the event for please see the rules around participant submitted ideas posted here. 

11:00 a.m.  It's time to get your Hack On!  You have from now until 3:00 p.m. on Sunday!  We're providing meals and snacks and support around the clock.

3:00 p.m. on Sunday it's time to let the keyboard rest.  You'll want to have your prototype and presentation ready for a three minute presentation to the judges with some Q&A.  There will be a brief intermission for scoring and then the top teams will be chosen and accolades will flow!  This will mark the end of the event and the beginning of the celebration, where we will also provide appropriate supplies.

Detailed Agenda

Saturday (10/03)

• 08:00AM: Doors open for check-in
• 09:00AM: Opening ceremony & Keynote by Hillary Hartley
• 09:30AM: Project pitches
• 10:30AM: Team formation
• 11:00AM: The Hackathon begins!
• Noon: Lunch is served
• 02:00PM: Submit team details
• 06:00PM: Dinner is served
• 09.00PM: Ice cream & Giant Jenga games

HACK THROUGH THE NIGHT

Sunday (10/04)

• Midnight: Pizza served
• 08:00AM:Breakfast is served & Subject matter experts available (3 hours)
• Noon: Lunch is served / I can’t think straight but this tastes awesome!
• 02:00PM: Code checked into GitHub
• 02:45PM: Presentations submitted on DevPost
• 03:00PM: Hackathon ends
• 03:15PM: Judging 
• 04:30PM: Closing 
• 05:00PM: Winners are announced / Prizathon!
• 05:30PM: Drinkathon / You’ve survived… let’s celebrate!

Find out more about Opportunity Hack 2014 here and some of the success stories here