Campaigns & Elections: RevoltDC Hackathon Awards $6,500 in Prizes
Campaigns & Elections Magazine | By C&E Staff | June 24, 2013
The creators of a two-way public opinion aggregation platform were crowned the winners of the RevoltDC Hackathon Saturday in Washington.Judges awarded Cameron Gallarno, Ahmad Rahim, Seif Kobrosly, Ryan Archer, and Elsa Sze, who went by the team name Agora, the top prize for their project during the day-long event at 1776, a business incubator.Sze, a student and research assistant at the International Monetary Fund, said she plans to roll out a prototype of the platform in Boston within weeks.
I came to the hackathon hoping to recruit a team," she said in a statement. "When I showed up at 1776's office, I still wasn't sure if I should have come. But then I saw a quote on the wall that says, ‘if you are getting uncomfortable, keep going in that direction, everything worth doing is there.’ So, where I lack in technical skills, I promise myself to make it up with limitless passion and energy.
Members of Agora split $2,500 in prize money.The event was technically non-partisan, but was organized by GOP activists Andrew Hemingway and Lara Aulestia. It was designed to help activists "develop usage applications" for political organizing.
Thousand dollar awards were also awarded to teams who created the best applications in the following categories:
- Big Data
- Grassroots
- Social Media
- Fundraising
APIs were provided by: Crimson, WidgetMakr, Facebook, PopVOX, Resonate, Twilio, Sunlight Foundation, Activist Manager, and GitHub.The RevoltDC Hackathon was underwritten by Crimson, WidgetMakr, AT&T, Consumer Electronics Association, MoDev, ACA Video, Application Developer's Alliance, Burrell & Co, Beekeeper Group, SalientMG, Grassloot, Microsoft, Agenda and Red Bull.