Hackathon London Heralded A Huge Success As 130 People Attend

The first Hackathon London, organised by Markco Media, has been a huge success as 130 people, made up of web developers, designers and entrepreneurs attended the weekend long event along with a number of well know VC’s and respected business mentors.

The first ever Hackathon London, organised and hosted at Markco Media’s offices at Butlers Wharf, has been heralded as a huge success. In total 130 people took part, and several of the ideas hacked together and pitched received interest from venture capital representatives that were in attendance.

Markco Media, a world-wide leader in voucher and discount code websites (including MyVoucherCodes.co.uk in the UK), hosted the event that was attended by web developers, designers and entrepreneurs along with mentors including Mark Pearson from Markco Media, Nic Brisbourne from DFJ Esprit (VC), Ross Williams, Founder of Global Personals, Hugh Chappell (VC and Business Mentor) and Will Martin from Angel Investment Network.

Teams and individuals came along, including a group of students from both the University of Canterbury and Aberystwyth University, and they were given access to API’s from brands such as Peerindex, Vouchacha, SeatWave, Twilio, Pusher and Markco Media.

The teams pitched their initial ideas, which the mentors and judges then used to decide what projects would be taken forward. The projects were worked on throughout the weekend, with most attendees sleeping in the office before, then pitching the finished projects to the VC and mentors.

The Business with the Best Potential prize, that came with three months mentorship from Mark Pearson, won by CrowdPad (www.Crowdpad.co.uk) , BrowseGraph (www.browsegraph.com) and Pythea (@Pythiadev) – explanation of each in Editors Notes.

Speaking about the event, Mark Pearson, founder and chairman of Markco Media said;

David Cameron wants the next Facebook to come from the UK and events like Hackathon London 2012 are going to be where this happens. I was hugely impressed by everyone who gave up their weekend, spent all that time working, the majority with minimal sleep and then presented some amazing ideas that had the VC’s and mentors scrambling to work with them.

Hugh Chappell (successfully exited from the likes of BitTech and Trusted Reviews to the likes of IPC/Time Warner and Denis Publishing – now a VC and business mentor) said;

“The London Hackathon promised budding entrepreneurs a unique opportunity to work on a business start-up idea over an entire weekend. I was particularly impressed by the quality of the attendees and their desire and passion for success in business. London Hackathon demonstrates that in the right environment, a great deal can be achieved in a short space of time. Judging reaction from those who attended and based my experiences of entrepreneurial events, I would say London Hackathon was a success. Personally, I look forward to the next one!”

Will Martin from Angel Investment Network said;

“Hackathon London at Markco Media produced the foundations from some potentially high quality start-ups. The calibre of the attending entrepreneurs and developers was excellent, with many teams coming together and working through the weekend to achieve a great deal in a short period of time. I look forward to the next one.”

Testimonials from attendees:

I came to Hackathon London looking to see some cool ideas, and build our own. The idea that people brought were interesting and I have yet to sleep. The staff from Markco Media are friendly and have some good ideas and suggestions to help us get our ideas up and running.

Chris Ewbank

Even though I am yet to sleep, I am thoroughly enjoying the event. The progress on out team has been awesome and the constant help and banter from the staff just gives us more motivation to carry on with our project!

Rufus Honour - OverHeard

“It’s been fun, if incredibly tiring, to stay up all night working on startup. Never had an opportunity like it before – I’d definitely do it again.”

Matt House

Considering I haven’t slept yet, I’m really enjoying Hackathon. I’d like it more if our prototype worked, but hey! You can’t get everything in the world!

James D

ENDS

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