Mozilla, Facebook and Microsoft hunt for best developers in 24-hour hackathon at HITBSecConf2013 - Malaysia

September 26th, Kuala Lumpur: This October, developers from around the globe have an opportunity to showcase their coding skills to an international audience at the HackWEEKDAY hackathon here in Kuala Lumpur.

Supported by Mozilla, Facebook and Microsoft, HackWEEKDAY is a software development hackathon that will run alongside the 11th annual HITB Security Conference in Malaysia – Asia’s premier deep-knowledge network security event that annually brings together some of the world’s leading security experts under one roof.

Dinesh Nair, Director, Developer Platform, Microsoft Malaysia.

This year’s HackWEEKDAY participants will get to work on development projects with a focus on Facebook, Mozilla’s Firefox OS or Microsoft’s Windows 8 / Windows Phone 8 mobile OS operating systems.

Open to both professionals and students, the developer who wins ‘Most L33t Coder’ will walk away with USD1,337 courtesy of Mozilla Corporation at the end of the 24 hours. The team from Mozilla will also be onsite to guide developers and they will also be bringing Firefox OS phones for developers to work with and experience. Three of the Firefox OS phones will also be awarded to winners as prizes.

Amongst this year’s participants are also 25 battling developers from DevSorcerer, a software reality show by the Microsoft Malaysia Community. For their grand finale round, DevSorcerer’s 25 finalists will be competing at HackWEEKDAY by working on applications that will go on to vie for investment to commercialisation.

“Microsoft is thrilled to be a key partner in HackWEEKDAY as it is part of our vision to transform Malaysia together through technology. As we transition into the App Economy, the Developer Ecosystem in Malaysia needs guidance, mentoring, training and a commercialization push to get these Apps out into the marketplace. Together, we hope to inspire these Developers and help them create an impact on this landscape. The time of the code warrior is here!” says Dinesh Nair, Director, Developer Platform, Microsoft Malaysia.

This year, HITB is also encouraging developers to work on community service applications such as an open data SOS/Emergency alert application. Facebook is supporting this cause with their developer and security teams who will be at HackWEEKDAY to engage and help developers get into integrating Facebook Social aspects into their applications.

"Applications for social good and community service are growing in popularity, and they're something we're very passionate about at Facebook. Kuala Lumpur has one of the largest developer communities in Asia, so we're looking forward to seeing how the community uses Facebook and Parse to build out innovative new ideas." said Bear Douglas, Developer Advocate at Facebook

“Every developer has a personal dream app idea at the back of their minds which they never find time to work on. HackWEEKDAY is a great platform to finally work on this, and in doing so, also vie for USD1,337 while showcasing one’s coding kung-f00 to industry bigwigs,” said Hafez Kamal, lead organizer for HackWEEKDAY.

This year’s entries will be reviewed by a panel of judges from Microsoft, Facebook and Mozilla. Previous years’ HackWEEKDAY highlight projects have included an Android RFID reader for Malaysia’s Touch N’ Go system, an open source DICOM image viewer utilizing Microsoft’s Kinect controller,  a DNSSEC management tool and also TALEB - a unique social communication and collaboration platform made for students by students.

“Mozilla is proud to be once again sponsoring HackWEEKDAY at the Hack In The Box security conference in Malaysia in October. The event is a chance for developers - both students and professional - to come together and prototype new apps and features for Firefox OS - security-related or otherwise. We want to build on the already strong community in the region and encourage the open-source community to support the future of the mobile web!” says Paul Theriault, Firefox OS Security Lead

HackWEEKDAY Hackathon will be held at Intercontinental Hotel Kuala Lumpur starting on Wednesday, 16th October and will end 24 hours later.  For more information and to sign up, please visit http://conference.hitb.org/hitbsecconf2013kul/event/hackweekday/