Last year, Henry and Alex, the co-founders of HackerBracket, met at MHacks III in Detroit. This year, we’re incredibly excited to be launching as the submissions platform for MHacks IV. HackerBracket, however, is not just a submissions platform. It is a community for sharing hacks through video demos; made by hackers, for hackers.
Hacks that are submitted at MHacks are featured throughout HackerBracket, and each one contributes to the overall community.The philosophy of HackerBracket focuses on more than just the competitive aspect of MHacks and other hackathons. What is most important to us as hackathon participants is not the competition, but instead the hackers themselves. Being hackers, we know that our community builds great things. We are proud of our hacks and have built HackerBracket to help hackers showcase their work and be proud of what they build. To do this, we’ve built a community that focuses on the best and most interesting hacks, not only the hacks that won. MHacks attendees as well as any other users of HackerBracket will be able to vote on the best hacks. What’s popular in the community isn't what got the best press, but what people like (or hell yeah). HackerBracket gives every hacker the opportunity to share their hack with the world.
Hacking doesn’t stop after MHacks. Participants will be able to carry on their hacks and contribute to the community at any time.
Show And Tell For Hackers
As MHacks participants share their hacks on HackerBracket, their profile becomes a portfolio of their projects. Hackers are encouraged to share their work with the world. The world, in return, will share their work with others as well as give feedback. In this respect, HackerBracket acts as more of a “show and tell” for MHacks than a judging platform.
Sometimes expressing what a hack does isn’t possible using just words. For example, Oculus Quidditch built for the Oculus Rift at MHacks Winter 2014 is just one of the many things that is best explained through video. After MHacks is over a live demo is far more difficult. We truly believe in video. HackerBracket makes it super easy to upload a video in one step during a hackathon using a mobile app.
We Make Your Hack Immortal
Hacks that are submitted at MHacks are featured throughout HackerBracket, and each one contributes to the overall community of hacking. This enables hackathon participants to see where they stand amongst the rest of the hackathons as well as among the overall community, and it gives newcomers a good look at what interesting things were built at hackathons. This means that your hack won’t be forgotten in a moment when the hackathon is over.
Better Featured Hacks
Traditionally hackathon submission pages feature only hacks that received prizes. What we’ve made is a way to share accomplishments, not to simply win prizes. HackerBracket is a portfolio that stays with you; projects remain part of it even after MHacks has ended.
During MHacks, hackers sometimes work on a project in hopes of winning API prizes. Winning an API prize doesn't necessarily make the hack more interesting. These hacks should not be given more visibility just because companies with prizes like them. People need to use APIs because they are useful and interesting. HackerBracket fixes this. Although you are still able to view prize recipients on the hackathon-specific page, whether a hack won a prize or not doesn't affect the placement of that hack across the site.
We'll Be at MHacks to Help
When’s the last time you saw a submissions rep at a hackathon? The HackerBracket team will personally be at MHacks to hack alongside all of the awesome hackers and to help them best share their project with the world. And of course to distribute some swag! Whether you’re a hacker, a VC, a sponsor, organizer, or n00b, you matter to us because you’re the people that make the tech community work. We want to be at MHacks in full support of you.
We invite MHacks blog readers to join the HackerBracket Private Beta using this special link: http://www.hackerbracket.com/user/new/mhackslove ****Update: Invite code fixed
See you at MHacks!
Henry, Alex & Isaiah
Special thanks to Jeff Hilnbrand, Zach Latta, and Tyler Menezes for reviewing this blog post.