SAN DIEGO, CA--(Marketwired - Jun 16, 2015) - CyberTECH, one of the nation's leading cybersecurity and Internet of Things (IoT) based ecosystem networks, conducted the AT&T CyberTECH Hackathon with the City of San Diego earlier this month drawing white hat hackers and software developers from all over the world. This year's event was the first of two in 2015 and drew not only Southern California competitors, but those from Brazil, Colombia and France. The second is scheduled for the Fall.
The AT&T CyberTECH Hackathon is a computer security competition that encourages web developers, programmers, cyber experts, entrepreneurs, and representatives from established enterprises to collaborate in a 24-hour period to create usable software. Using real datasets provided by the San Diego Development Services Department (DSD), the Hackathon required competing teams to build secure mobile applications that will be useful for all San Diego residents.
This year's "Best Hackathon Overall App" went to Onesto for leveraging the San Diego City database to allow people to find and hire a reliable contractor for home improvements based on a rating system from the OpenSanDiegoDatabase and crowdsourcing.
"Of course, everything we provided was anonymized to protect privacy," noted Gary Hayslip, Deputy Director and Chief Information Security Officer for the City of San Diego and the CyberTECH Co-Chairman of the event. "Literally everything will be connected to the Internet in the next five years. One of our jobs at the City is to do whatever we can to make sure that the personal information of every person in San Diego is protected."
"The Best Use of the City of San Diego Dataset" was awarded to team Move-in who created an app connected to the OpenDSD to check if dogs bark, vandalism is high, and any other neighborhood issues including problems with sewage or street lights.
"These are examples of the type of positive mobile apps we were looking for," commented Darin Andersen, Chairman and Founder of CyberTECH. "It wasn't just that these apps are useful, the most important part is they are extremely secure and provide privacy to everyone involved. Those issues are as important as the functionality of the app itself, and it's why we developed the Hackathon in the first place."
"This is a very important sponsorship for us," added Michael Pacholec from AT&T. "It's not just the importance of supporting the City and CyberTECH, it's the importance of developing new resources for the security community. Our hope is that the participants will be able to put their experience in this competition to work in their companies."
The Hackathon was held in downtown San Diego at the newly expanded CyberTECH incubator and co working offices, CyberHive and iHive. CyberHive is focused on cybersecurity companies and iHive is dedicated to IoT and mobility start-ups and later stage companies.
In addition to AT&T, major sponsors of the event included Splunk, Squar Milner, CGI and CyberUnited.
About CyberTECH
CyberTECH is a global cybersecurity and Internet of Things (IoT) network ecosystem providing cybersecurity and IoT resources, strategic programs and thought leadership events across the nation. In partnership with national and local organizations, the CyberTECH mission is to stimulate innovation and advance the adoption of cyber and IoT technologies for the economic and social benefit of the nation.