Conventions & Awards

Slash Gets His Own Hackathon During #SXSW At Slashathon

SlashathonThe hottest hackathon at SXSW 2014 will undoubtedly be the SXSW Music Hackathon Championship on March 12, because the hacker who will be there to build functional digital music technologies from a suite of APIs and their own ingenuity consist of the cream of the music-hacking crop, with $13,500 in cash prizes at stake.

On the same day, just a few blocks away, guitarist Slash will host his very own personal hackathon, billed as “the first ever artist-focused hackathon.” Indeed, we have never heard of an entire music hackathon focused on a single artist. The goal of Slashathon, as it is aptly known, will be to build tools with which artists can connect with their fans around an album release.

The winning hack will be used by Slash himself to promote his own album release in late 2014, but ostensibly, everything created at Slashathon might find its way to other artists, because the problem of how to get in touch with all of one’s fans when an album is being released, in a way that gets them excited, is hardly restricted to just Slash — it’s something all artists want to do.

The APIs on hand at this hackathon will be Aviary, Codio.io, Dolby, Gimbal, Elasticsearch, Leap Motion, Lob, Mad Mimi, Raspberry Pi, and Yellow — although presumably hackers will be able to construct their album-promotion hacks out of other APIs as well.

In addition to having Slash use their app later this year, the grand prize winner will get an autographed guitar and $1,000.

 

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