Dozens of app developers were busy all day Saturday at the University of Nevada for the Reno Hackathon competition.
Developers started building at noon. They have a total of 24 hours to create new, unique apps, and the winner will have theirs submitted to Microsoft.
Whether it's to check sports scores or find a good restaurant, many of us use apps every day. So where do some of these great ideas come from you ask? The answer is right here in our own backyards.
"What can we make that will make the user want to choose us and use our program over someone else's," says participant Robert McKay.
If you can successfully answer that question, you could strike it rich.
McKay and his group of University of Nevada students are hoping to find their money-maker with a new game.
"Putting several different types of programming together, it's really interesting to see how we can make it work," says Abdallah Beekun, who's working with McKay.
Each group has such 24 hours to create a new app from scratch. Certainly not an easy task.
"Describing it to the computer is the tricky part," says Beekun. "Having the concept, it's not as bad, but that's where you start from."
The technology community in this area is expanding quickly. This competition gives more people the chance to dive into the marketplace.
"People can go in and visually kind of create the application their way," says Michael Costello, an organizer of Reno Hackathon. "And have it done in a really short period of time."
While most teams are creating games and software apps, one group is making something a little different.
"It allows you to connect with people who are going through a cancer experience in a friendly and even fun way," says Pat Wetzel.
Wetzel is with the Anti-Cancer Club, which helps cancer patients focus on continuing a healthy lifestyle. It's new app will allow people to connect with them from all over the world.
"Imagine you were sitting in chemotherapy," says Wetzel. "You're not looking very good, feeling pretty crummy and you're scared to death. Wouldn't it be nice to pick up your phone and see 20 or 30 text messages, just saying 'I'm thinking about you."
It's new apps like that which make these competitions worthwhile. And from what we can tell, the app world is only getting bigger from here.
"Anybody that has a great idea can build their app and actually submit it and they have a chance that it can go huge," says Costello. "And I want that to happen here in Reno."
Written by Adam Rasmussen
