MIT Media Lab Reality, Virtually, Hackathon & Expo
MIT Media Lab is hosting the largest augmented and virtual reality hackathon in the United States on Columbus Day Weekend. MIT Media Lab is hosting over 400 designers and developers at the largest augmented and virtual reality hackathon in the United States. The event will encourage attendees to explore immersive technologies by building different applications for multiple industries, including healthcare, construction, advertising, and more. The Hackathon begins this Friday, October 7th at 7:00 PM and will run until Monday October 10th until 6pm.
The hackathon theme is consistent with the Media Lab’s purpose: “The MIT Media Lab goes beyond known boundaries and disciplines, encouraging the most unconventional mixing and matching of seemingly disparate research areas. It creates disruptive technologies that happen at the edges.”
“Participants from MIT, other top universities, and the VR and AR communities around the world will form teams to develop innovative software solutions that will unlock the technology’s potential in new categories, some never attempted before” says Steven Max Patterson, one of the hackathon organizers.
Participants will utilize AR and VR platforms provided by sponsors to learn these technologies or to build on existing knowledge. In advance of the hackathon, workshops will be held on Friday Oct 7th in order to bring participants up to speed with development platforms, headsets, software tools and design. Mentors skilled in design, platform development, and vertical VR and AR applications will provide guidance and assist participants in breaking through conceptual and development roadblocks.
This event will be attended by some of world’s leading developers in Virtual and Augmented Reality from 9 countries and 20+ US States.
Dig-Capital advisors estimates that venture capitalists invested a record $2.3 billion in VR/AR start-ups over the last 12 months. A new report from market analysis firm, Juniper, states that VR hardware will be worth $50 billion by 2021.
Theme: The Reality, Virtually Hackathon will seek to expand the skills of designers, developers, graphic artists and sound/video engineers to explore unique and emerging uses of VR/AR in markets such as entertainment, medical, education, advertising, architecture, engineering, construction, etc.
Location: MIT Media Lab’s beautiful 6th floor facility 75 Amherst St. Cambridge, Massachusetts overlooking the Boston city skyline.
When: Columbus Day Weekend:
– Friday October 7th 7pm – 11pm
– Saturday October 8th 7am – 1am
– Sunday October 9th 7am – 9pm
– Monday October 10th 10am – 4pm
– Hackathon entry requires application and selection.
Public Expo: Monday, October 10, 2016 from 10 AM – 4PM. Expo is FREE and Open for General Public but requires an RSVP here: realityvrhackexpo.eventbrite.com
Expected Attendance: 400 – 500 participants from the local, national and international developer community and students from MIT and other universities around the world.
The Reality, Virtually, Hackathon is organized by a team of AR/VR experts, developers, industry executives, MIT undergraduate and graduate students and alumni.
Sponsors: MIT Media Lab, AT&T, Microsoft, Samsung, Autodesk, SpaceoutVR, Sony Playstation, Cubic, Qualcomm, GE Ventures, Isobar, Imotions, Shadow Creator, ARM, Fox, HTC Vive, Tango, Affectiva and Unity.
