November 17, 2008

Yahoo! Hack Day in Israel

Yahoo! has held its first developer events in Israel, and I think all of us who went were struck by the energy and entrepreneurship of the industry there.

YDN partnered with the BOSS team’s international roadshow on two very different events in Tel Aviv, the country’s high-tech hub.

More than 200 people attended the opening event at GarageGeeks, a digital community space in the Holon industrial zone.

It’s an amazing place created from, yes, a garage complete with lots of machine parts, a BBQ made from half a car, and Guitar Hero on the PlayStation. Think Mythbusters meets Hackday.

It was a beautiful evening so the presentations and socialising were held outside. BOSS was incredibly well received by the audience, made up of internet folk from coders to marketeers to VCs. A lot of people we talked to were really enthusiastic and felt that this is a potentially disruptive technology.

All together an edgy, fun evening, and the party was still going strong when we crept away at midnight.

By contrast, the following afternoon’s BOSS Hack was a much more chilled out affair.

About 100 developers and entrepreneurs gathered in a swanky nightclub in Herzliya Pituah for a deep dive into the BOSS API, presented in Hebrew by BOSS Engineering Director Eran Palmon.

To get the coders’ creative juices flowing, the BOSS team announced a BOSS Hack prize of $2,000.

This wasn’t a full 24-hour Hack Day (as recently held in Sunnyvale, Taipei and São Paulo) but we had lots of great entries and thanks to everyone who took part.

The winning team, http://www.getthepicsure.com wrote an addictive phrase guessing game (similar to Hang-Man), based on Yahoo! BOSS image, news and web search APIs. An honourable mention goes to the very close runner-up http://www.whatdoesthewebthink.com which shows how the wisdom of crowds doesn't always shine through on the web.

We met lots of great people in Tel Aviv, and we're hoping to organise more YDN events in Israel in 2009.

Sophie Major,
YDN International

Posted at November 17, 2008 1:50 AM

Comments

Posted by: Orli Yakuel at November 18, 2008 10:46 PM