Everybody’s Goin’ Hacking… at the LinkedIn Hackday

By Conor Rushby |

With the countdown on to Europe’s first LinkedIn hackday, some new sneaky clues have been released about the event’s finale – it’s something to do with the Beach Boys! It’s not too late to take part, with places still available for the 24 hour hackathon on October 19 and 20 at Sankt Oberholz.

The event is taking the theme of ennui, to force hackers to think of ideas which have a purpose for work or personal life, and then build them from scratch. The results will be judged on elegance and functionality by a jury of Rahul Vora, CEO of RapportiveSoundCloud’s VP engineering Alexander Grosse and Alex Kölpin, COO of the German Startups Group.

Any code written remains the property of the authors, while Apple goodies are up for grabs for winners – MacBook Airs for everyone on the winning team and iPads for second place, while third prize is a €100 Visa card.

And co-organiser Florina Xhabija also promised Silicon Allee that there would be a “huge surprise” for entrants – and by way of a clue, she said they should think of the Beach Boys, the Mamas & Papas or the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

She said: “We need to remind ourselves that multitasking or checking out cat videos might not exactly yield the same happiness level as we expect.”  Florina also provided some tips for the participants, suggesting that to do well teams should “make an app that is completely stripped down from the glitter, and offers function and clean design.”

If your curiosity is sparked you can get in touch with other hackers via the Berlin Hackday Group on LinkedIn.