SXSW Opens Entries For $10,000 Annual Hackathon

Annual industry conference and showcase South By Southwest is bringing back the Hackathon — a competition for hackers, designers and programmers to create music-tech innovations in 24 hours; no big deal — and has opened entries to the general public.

With a $US10,000 (about $12,800) prize up for grabs, if you're any kind of dab hand at technical wizardry, it's a no-brainer to apply — but be forewarned that you'll have to handle getting yourself to the Hilton Austin Downtown in Texas in time for the 24-hour period to kick off at 2pm on Wednesday, 18 March, and hang around long enough to attend the Championship Awards Show on Friday, 20 March, on the off-chance your innovation is picked as the year's best and you can use the prize money to help cover your travel costs.

Entry is free and does not require SXSW registration.

A panel of celebrity judges will choose what they see as the most promising prototype, with the arbitrators this year consisting of Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros frontman Alex Ebert, president of Young Money Entertainment Mack Maine, The Stooges guitarist James Williamson, Gracenote president Stephen White and Warner Music Groups' senior vice-president, digital, Jonathan Dworkin.

At last year's inaugural competition, the grand prize went to an app called Moot, a looping app that in its prototype form took the first four bars of songs from Beats Music's platform and allowed users to create loops with the sample, with the developers saying at the time that they were looking to keep working on the app and broaden its functionality — although their website remains totally empty. So, it doesn't even look like you have to follow through in the long run to walk out with thousands in hand. That's the kind of competition we can get behind.

For further information about the Hackathon or how to apply, head to SXSW's website.