List of hackathons in Walnut Creek, United States in 2016

Funding a Deep Learning startup? Learn what entrepreneurs should consider when starting an AI/DL startup and what investors look for. Join us for a fireside chat with Nitin Pachisia, Martin Hack and please welcome back Prateek Joshi. Nitin Pachisia is founding partner at Unshackled Ventures, an early stage venture capital fund that is actively investing in AI and Deep Learning startups. Nitin will share an investor’s perspective on what makes a Deep Learning startup appealing to investors.   Martin Hack is a serial entrepreneur, active investor and advisor to early and growth stage technology companies and venture funds. Prateek Joshi is the founder of Pluto AI, where he is using Deep Learning to save water. Prateek will share his experiences starting and fund raising as founder of a Deep Learning startup and an immigrant entrepreneur. The fireside chat will be followed by networking with investors and entrepreneurs. Nitin Pachisia Nitin Pachisia is a founding partner of Unshackled Ventures, an early stage venture capital fund for immigrant founders in the U.S. Unshackled Ventures is supported by nearly 80 investors, including Brad Feld, First Round Capital, Yahoo founder Jerry Yang and the Emerson Collective, founded by Laurene Powell Jobs. Before starting Unshackled Ventures, Nitin founded an experiential ecommerce company. Prior to that, he ran finance and strategy for ed-tech startup Kno (acquired by Intel) that raised over $90M of funding from top VC’s including Andreessen Horowitz, First Round Capital and Floodgate. Before Kno, Nitin worked at Deloitte, focusing on tech startups and helping them with growth, exits, and strategic initiatives.Nitin has appeared on NBC, NPR, CCTV, has been featured in various publications including Forbes, WSJ, Financial Times, Techcrunch, CNN, and has been an op-ed contributor in the Huffington Post and ReCode. Nitin is actively engaged as mentor or as part of evaluation committee at Stanford University, Babson, Alchemist Accelerator, GTWY, Founder Institute, among others.Being an immigrant himself and having founded startups while on a visa in U.S., Nitin understands the venture resources immigrant founders need, besides capital. He recognizes the opportunity immigrant founders represent and is focused on building an ecosystem that strengthens the pursuit of their American dream. Martin Hack  Martin was the Founder, Chairman of the Board and CEO of Skytree, a venture-backed Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Company. Under his vision and leadership he grew the company from its inception to triple, triple, double bookings while assembling a world-class machine learning technology and business team. During his tenure Skytree attracted a variety of industry leading customers and strategic investors such as Samsung, American Express, UPS and In-Q-Tel. Prior to Skytree, Martin was an executive at SonicWall (acquired by Dell), GreenBorder (acquired by Google) and Sun Microsystems (acquired by Oracle).  Prateek Joshi Prateek Joshi is an Artificial Intelligence researcher, a published author of 4 books (you can find all four of his books on Amazon) and a TEDx speaker. He is the founder of Pluto AI, a Silicon Valley startup building an analytics platform for water management based on Deep Learning. His work in this field has led to patents, tech demos, and research papers at IEEE conferences. He actively blogs at  www.prateekjoshi.com on topics such as Artificial Intelligence, Python programming, and abstract mathematics. The blog has received more than 1 million page views from 200+ countries.Prateek has been an invited speaker at technology and entrepreneurship conferences. He has also been featured as a guest author in prominent tech magazines. He is an avid coder and has won many hackathons. He graduated from University of Southern California with a Masters degree specializing in Artificial Intelligence. He was elected to become a member of the Honors Society for academic excellence and an ambassador for the school of engineering. He has worked at companies such as Nvidia and Microsoft Research. You can learn more about him on his personal website at www.prateekj.com.   Event schedule:   7:00 PM-7:30PM: Food and Sign in   7:30 PM - 8:30 PM: Fireside Chat followed by Q&A   8:30 PM - 9:00 PM: Social Hour and Networking     Our Partners & Sponsors: Many thanks to our event sponsor, Roger Royse, founder of Royse Law Firm, PC, www.rroyselaw.com Royse Law Firm provides sophisticated, yet affordable, legal services to growing companies, high net worth individuals and investment funds in the technology sector as well as more traditional businesses such as hospitality, agri-business, real estate and manufacturing. Our clients include multi-national companies with globally dispersed ownership, management and operations as well as closely held and family businesses due to their need for integrated legal solutions that emphasize tax efficiencies. Our tax expertise is a common thread that runs throughout our practice and distinguishes the Royse Law Firm from other general business firms. We frequently advise other law firms on tax aspects of their corporate, real estate, and commercial transactions and provide tax advice to litigation attorneys in various contexts, including the taxation of recoveries and professional liability. Finally, we regularly advise on mergers and acquisitions (M&A), corporate equity and debt financings, and partnership and joint venture transactions. SPACES: Creative working space in silicon valley’s menlo park: situated in tech hub Silicon Valley, Spaces Menlo Park is an exclusive creative workspace perfectly positioned on the waterfront. Inspiring contemporary interior design fuels innovative thinking, while wide open space offers free rein to bounce ideas in a collaborative working atmosphere. Our unique design ethos and tailored service concept make Spaces Menlo Park well suited to your business needs.   The Silicon Valley Deep Learning Group is a non-for-profit initiative. We are about scientists and developers interested in deep learning, entrepreneurs starting companies in deep learning, and investors interested in investment opportunities in deep learning start ups.  http://www.meetup.com/The-Deep-Learning-Group/   http://www.svdlg.com/

The SacSOS Datathon is a half-day event to crowdsource data that will help Sacramentans experiencing homelessness find the services they need. We need help from volunteers of all technical skill levels to find, convert, and upload more data to our system that is already up and running and helping people in our community! What is SacSOS? SacSOS is a website developed by a team at Code for Sacramento's Hack4Sac hackathon in early 2016. It allows people experiencing homelessness, or the people helping them, to search for and find the services they need, including how far away they are from the searcher and what their hours of operation are. SacSOS has a bunch of great features, and a lot of useful information, but it needs more! What will you do? Depending on your skills, you will help us add information to SacSOS by: Finding available service data online Typing or copying/pasting data into a spreadsheet Converting existing data to the right format to upload to the database Scraping data from PDFs Other ETL functions as necessary What can you bring? Your desire to help people in your community Your brain Your cheerful disposition Your computer (Don't have one to bring? Come anyway, and we'll find something for you to do!) What will you get out of it? Coffee Lunch Camaraderie with other socially-conscious Sacramentans The warm glow of having given to your community We look forward to seeing you on December 10! The SacSOS Datathon is generously sponsored by CFY Development.

Performers and developers! Are you interested in how technology can foster innovation in dance? Kinetech Arts & CounterPulse invite you to participate in DanceHackDay 2016. This is a daylong event that combines the traditional hackathon with a dance lab. You'll get the opportunity to create new and innovative applications of technology and dance material to create awesome live audience experiences. You'll be challenged to use DIY wireless heart monitors to create a cloud-based dataset of the heart rate of performers and use it to create interactive performance pieces based on the actual live heart rate of performers in multiple cities.

Developers, designers, marketers, entrepreneurs, etc.! Are you dissatisfied with the 2016 election cycle? Step up with an idea that could improve the next one. Debug Politics invites you to participate in Debug Politics: SF Hackathon II. a nonpartisan hackathon. Come along and collaborate to find innovative ways to make a real difference. You'll be part of a team that will be challenged to identify one specific thing about the election cycle you were dissatisfied with and build something to fix it. You can come as a team or form one on the night!

Engineers, designers, product managers, businesspeople, marketers, investors, etc. in the Bay ASrea! Frustrated with the state of the political climate? Want to make a difference? Sign up today to participate in the non-partisan Reboot Democracy Hackathon. Participate and use technology to help build tools that can help transform the political system to be truly representative of — and responsive to — all citizens.

SOLD OUT! Check out our next workshop on January 20th - 22nd: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/vr-weekend-workshop-learn-unity-tickets-30060904976  Intro to Virtual Reality Weekend Workshop  VR is blowing up right now! The space is expected to grow into a $150 billion dollar industry by 2020. With the recent release of Playstation VR, Google Daydream and more, now is the time to learn how to be a part of this industry. Join us on December 9th-11th, where in just 3 short days we'll teach you how to build VR experiences. The workshop will focus on teaching you Unity VR, enabling you to build fully functional VR apps in no time! You'll also make new friends and get to try amazing VR experiences. We will announce more workshops focusing on business strategy, product concept and development for different industries soon. If you're interested in any future workshop offerings, please email ned@uploadvr.com.  About UploadVR Upload is the leading news, coworking, events and education provider in the VR industry. For more info check out www.uploadvr.com. Prerequisites: A computer with Unity installed  Basic C# coding knowledge (if you've never programmed before then put a few hours in at Microsoft Virtual Academy or LearnC# - Either one will prepare you enough for this course). What's provided: Food and drinks provided all three days HTC Vives and Oculus Rifts for testing your creations VR Gaming experiences to play with during down time Free online courseware access for you to continue your VR education Discounts to VR software and future VR education programs VR Weekend Schedule: Friday, December 9th (6:15pm-9pm) 6:15pm: Dinner, drinks and play VR games in our Holodeck Rooms 7:00pm: Intro to Unity | Building your first VR Experience 9:00pm: Light drinks and hanging out then we're done for the night! Get some rest for a big day tomorrow! Saturday, December 10th (10am-7pm) 10:00am: Breakfast, meet and greet, and play VR games in our holodeck rooms 10:30am: VR Weekend Talk: Jewel Lim and Jake Stull, Found  11:00am-1:00: Learn to make your first VR game, SKI BALL  1:00pm: Lunch 1:30pm-6:00pm: Finish making your VR SKI BALL Game 6:00pm-7:00pm: Stick around, test your game and play around in VR Sunday, December 11th (10am-7pm) 10:00am: Doors open, breakfast :) 10:30am: VR Weekend Talks: Jazmin Cano, High Fidelity 11:00am: Go over your SKI BALL game, address concerns and work through blocks 12:00pm-1:00pm: Learn about the Unity Asset Store and prep for your 2nd VR experience: Shooter 1:00pm: Lunch 1:30 - 5:30pm: Finish building your Shooter game 5:30 - 7:00pm: End of class celebration and drinks, game testing and playing with VR About the Guest Speakers and Instructors   Guest Speakers   Jazmin Cano VR Content Creator Jazmin Cano has been developing 3D content for Virtual Reality games and education since her first experience using a DK1 in 2013. Most recently, she operates as High Fidelity's Marketing and Events Coordinator, organizing hackathons and meetups in the metaverse and in person. While working in VR she has experience building worlds to be seen in the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Samsung Gear VR, and Google Cardboard. In her free time, she creates 3D artwork, plays PC games and visits local comic book shops in search of new sci-fi material. Jewel Lim Producer at Found Jewel Lim is a hybrid artist-developer and the Producer of Found, a VR experience born out of the Upload Academy (in partnership with MakeSchool). With degrees in both visual arts and computer science, her passion is to bridge art and technology by creating meaningful and impactful experiences, particularly in areas of education, data visualization, and cinematic experiences, using VR technologies. Selected to participate in a highly competitive mentorship-incubator program called Oculus Launch Pad by Oculus, she works with the Found team to realize a cohesive and moving interactive cinematic experience. Through her product management expertise, she ensures that all parts of the process, from creative to technical, are in line with the team’s collective vision, while also participating as a developer and designer. Jake Stull CG Artist at Found Jake Stull is an illustrator, animator, and CG artist for Found, a VR experience born out of the Upload Academy (in partnership with MakeSchool). With a focus on storytelling, he builds scenes and characters, bringing them to life in 3D. Working primarily in Maya, zBrush, and Photoshop, he has three years of experience in the animation and gaming industry. His background in illustration and animation has helped him to collaborate on the artistic vision shared by everyone on the Found team. Instructors   Benjamin Taller Lead Instructor @ Upload Academy, formerly built games @Sony @Zynga @Kabam Benjamin Taller has been a virtual world pioneer for most of his life, starting at a young age making levels and mods for Doom, Duke Nukem 3d, and Quake. He always knew VR would be the future of gaming. Ben went to school for computer science and joined Metaplace in 2008. Shortly after Metaplace, Ben worked at Sony Online Entertainment building AAA virtual worlds. He also worked on Star Wars Clone Wars Adventures: a large scale Star Wars Massive Multiplayer Online World. Ben subsequently worked at both Kabam and Zynga on social and mobile games. He has been using Unity professionally for almost four years. This past summer, Ben was an instructor for the Upload Academy, an 8-week intensive VR coding academy in partnership with MakeSchool. Sky Nite Best selling author of Virtual Reality Insider, CEO of Dimension VR, Instructor @ Upload Academy Sky Nite wrote 'Virtual Reality Insider', the bestselling VR book in the world for the last 2 years. He then taught himself the VR stack and went on to build a VR game company, Dimension VR before joining Upload. This past summer, Sky was an instructor at the Upload Academy, an 8-week intensive VR coding academy in partnership with MakeSchool. Sky is currently working on expanding Upload's education efforts in a new online program with Udacity. You can normally find Sky at meetups around town, VR forums, and on the top of Reddit for all kinds of wonky stuff. No refunds. Questions? Please contact Ned Atkins, ned@uploadvr.com

Interested in bots and all things AI? Come and showcase your skills and creativity at the Facebook BOT Hackathon: San Francisco! This is 24-hour hackathon, where you'll show whose boss by building awesome on building Bots for Facebook Messenger! You'll be using the Recime platform for building bots, so all the underlying plumbing is taken care of — leaving you to concentrate in building your bot!

Virtual reality fanatics in and around San Francisco and the Bay area! Think you have what it takes to blow some VR minds? Come and participate in the Virtual Reality Hackathon. You get to meet and collaborate with the best of the best VR techies in Northern California. You can bring your own VR project or pick om e of the challenges posed at the event. It's your choice!

Interested in good policing? Come and participate in a day-long hackathon and explore data science models and D3 visualizations to help the efforts of the Citizens Police Data Project. You'll be helping to support a national model of transparency and accountability for police actions. You'll collaborate with like-minded individuals on a project in one of three broad areas: »Data Visualization: Using d3, Gephi, and any other visualization tools, create a compelling and informative story. »Data Science: Create a propagation model to understand the impact of reassigning police officers. »Data Engineering: Add functionality to ResponseBot, CPDP's chatbot.

Bot Developer Camp is one of the most pure and original hackathons with the freedom to choose any project that relates to chat bots. Chat bots are simple, early forms of artificial intelligence that have grown massively on mobile and desktop messaging platforms in the past year. Create an intelligent bot that relies on a certain pattern to create trust and foster cooperation, hack with a team, and validate your ideas!