A hackathon is a gathering of programmers – although there may be graphic designers, data analysts, or entrepreneurs – who meet in one-day to one-week events to collaboratively develop open software.
This is one that is part of the public domain or that, once acquired, can be freely used, copied, modified or distributed. The term comes from the union of the English voices hack and marathon, and refers to the marathon extension in time of these meetings, which sometimes leave images of participants sleeping with their heads on the keyboard, drinking energy drinks or devouring fast food in between. monitors.
Hackathons are convened with varied objectives and respond to the hacker spirit in its most positive sense , since they stimulate innovation, teamwork and learning. They often have a social and supportive approach, but there are also competitive ones, and large technology and internet companies call on them to find talent.
Most hackathons are held for defined purposes : to develop software that solves specific needs, to work with an operating system or a specific programming language, to create applications …
