Vancouver iOS developer startup A Thinking Ape wanted to host a Hackathon, but they weren’t too enthused with traditional Alpha Nerds smelling up the joint. This led to the creation the White Day Hackathon. It was named after the Japanese tradition of boys giving back white-themed gifts to girls who had given them chocolate on Valentine’s Day. The goal was to get more female developers out, and it worked! Over half of the 60 attendees were female.

18 teams of one to three developers sought to win prizes such as “Most Nauseatingly Cute” and “Best Date Bailout”.

I entered this mashup of a Dating Sim and Customer Database. It got nominated for “Most Nauseatingly Cute”.

And Cupcakes! Let’s not forget cupcakes!The Winning entries included Datebomb (Get out of your date with 20 texts from your “Crazy Friend), Food Fight (Vote on where to go to Lunch), Korde (build chord progressions for songs) and Cupcake Delight in SPAAAACE (Give cupcakes to hungry planets).

The programming was really strenuous, but it was a lot of fun! Devs need these kind of gatherings to build up their networks and perhaps build more startups. Let’s hope there’s another one next year!