SLASH threw the first-ever musician-focused Hackathon, titled SLASHATHON, at Capital Factory during Austin music week (March 12). For seven hours straight, teams of technology developers worked to create new and interesting music-oriented applications for promotion on-the-spot. After the seven-hour window, developers gave full demo presentations of the hacks to SLASH who was joined by fellow judges Bram Cohen (Bitorrent) and Robert Scoble (first Microsoft employee, Rackspace). Three winners were selected (see list below).
The Grand Prize includes a Gibson guitar autographed by SLASH, $1,000 dollars and the opportunity to have SLASH use the winning hack with the release of his new album with Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators, due out in early fall 2014. SLASHATHON--powered by Geeklist--offers developers a unique challenge to create solutions for musicians to engage and grow their communities before an album release. "Thank you to all the developers who put forth their best efforts in record time for the 1st ever Slashathon," notes SLASH. "It was all brilliant. I'm looking forward to doing this event every year." Stephen Wolfram--the British scientist, theoretical physicist, chief designer of the Mathematica software application and the Wolfram Alpha answer engine (Microsoft's Bing, Apple's Siri, as well as Google and Yelp!)--dropped into the SLASHATHON and visited with the guitarist. The winners of the 2014 SLASHATHON are as follows:Videos