Feature: Hacking and Tech in Miami

Photos by Luis Bolaños

I noticed that the color of the sky outside had changed from blue to orange.

The sun was setting. Instead of looking at the color of the sky outside, I should’ve been making progress on my idea for an application. An application for this 24 hour programming competition, called a hackathon.

There’s one problem.

I don’t have an idea.

I’m sitting in the second floor of the University Center at the University of Miami filled with teams and other students working on different projects, all with hopes of winning. My hopes in particular sat on the same bench as winning the lottery, finding a unicorn and finding a stable girlfriend.

I’m sitting alone at a circular table, with my whiteboard lying flat on the table featuring a strange rendition of the word “art.” Probably the best piece of artwork I had ever done. Six hours have passed since the start of the competition.

The orange sky was a thing of beauty, as it was nature’s own art. Free and without having to pay for admission.

This hackathon is about art, by using technology and applications to display, improve and make all sorts of art stand out. One hell of a goal for these students from all different backgrounds, although everyone had something they were working on. I was the odd one out.

I didn’t have a damn clue.

I kept looking through my notes like a crazed scientist trying to figure out what went wrong in a crazy science experiment. Hoping to find something. Anything.

Having gone through a three-hour design and development workshop two days prior, an all-day technology conference 24 hours prior and my own creativity and passion fueling my ideas, I have no visible progress after six hours of sitting at that damn circular table. The sun was setting, signaling the beginning of the end of that Saturday.

I had no idea what I was going to do for the next 18 hours.

 

What’s the Miami tech scene really like?”

I learned about the Miami tech scene at a panel I had attended at a comic-book convention last summer. Not exactly the first place you’d think to talk about the tech scene, seeing as the convention was filled with colorful cosplayers, freaky fans and vying vendors selling all sorts of merchandise from scantily clad anime characters on posters to Mario plushies.

The tech panel was pretty eye opening, but I made the mistake of not sticking with the tech scene I’d been exposed to. It became a distant memory long after the comic-book convention ended.

Months later, I’d run into the Miami tech scene again, thanks to reddit.com, the popular social news and entertainment site known for their fascination of cats, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and internet memes. I’m a regular visitor, and I had recently subscribed to the Miami page, in a quest to meet new people.

While browsing the Miami reddit page in early February, and I stumbled upon a post that caught my attention.

From reddit.com/r/miami

From reddit.com/r/miami

A redditor had asked the Miami community: “What’s the Miami tech scene really like?” I clicked the post immediately. I was wondering the exact same thing.

Despite my brief exposure to it at the comic-book convention. I didn’t think Miami had a serious tech community, especially when compared to places like Silicon Valley or Seattle.

In the comments of that post, one user brought up The LAB Miami coworking space and the RefreshMiami group. Another brought up something called SuperConf.

I clicked the SuperConf link, and couldn’t believe what I found.

 

Write More

I began to write some phrases to motivate myself as I stared at my “art” drawing that I’d done on the whiteboard. It looked crazy, but then again I wasn’t in a particularly good mindset. I spent the previous six hours running circles in my mind.

2013-02-23 20.59.14Think more, code more, draw more, design more, learn more and write more were all scribbled across the art drawing. I tried to characterize the phrases by giving them different styles and fonts.

I looked at my strange scribbling, all of which had come from random thoughts that flew through my mind. All of a sudden Oscar Sanchez, the UM IEEE president and lead organizer of UHack, came over and began talking to me. Kicking me out of my mental shell.

A quick conversation followed, mainly about my progress, and discussion about my background. I talked about my writer and tech background, and he added input immediately. He offered some advice, and left me to my mind once again.

I looked down at my whiteboard, and the words “Write More” popped out like a 3D image. I erased everything on the board, except for Write More.

I thought of my creative writing class that I had taken in the prior semester. Our instructor told us at the end of the semester to keep writing, even after the class had finished. Considering I enjoyed writing, she was preaching to the choir. I love to write.

“Write More.” It was different from “keep writing” and ideas began to form in my head.

Write More.

 

Return of the Tech

SuperConf was the answer I was waiting for. Instead of a comic-book convention, it was a technology-centric conference, where web design, web development, entrepreneurship, learning and networking were the major themes.

My background is in the web. I worked with WordPress with The Crimson, Florida Tech’s Student Run newspaper, and Spider-Bot, my own personal (tiny) blog that covers video games (the site you’re currently on, if you haven’t noticed yet.) There was more to web design and development than WordPress, despite my undying love for the blogging platform. The words “Web Design + Dev Conference” made me do an internal backflip. I really wanted to go, but the price was a slight deterrent.

However, thanks to some quick Google searching, I squeezed myself into SuperConf at a student rate.

I was going to take part in workshops held at The LAB Miami, along with the talks held at the Miami Convention Center. Truthfully, I still couldn’t believe I was going to SuperConf.

MiaTechWeek

From miamitechweek.com

Amidst the discovery of SuperConf, I learned about Miami Tech Week, organized by RefreshMiami.

A weeklong technology celebration in Miami? Pinch me.

On the Tech Week site, I learned about UHack, a free hackathon held at the University of Miami. UHack was 24 hour competition where students would get together and “hack” away at an application involving art along with presenting the application to judges.

Looking through the UHack site, I felt that I lacked experience to partake in such an event. I knew I’d be around powerhouse students, who would program, think and design from dusk ‘til dawn and overshadow anything I’d do. Logically, I didn’t have a chance against the other students.

Despite the odds against me, I felt the need to go. It was a romantic idea, to sit alongside student developers and designers and partake in this hackathon, despite not having programmed in a while and never having made an actual workable app in my life. All I had was my brief programming experience, my Crimson and Spider-Bot experiences and my passion for tech.

Without hesitation, I signed up for UHack, and began counting down the days to the workshops at The LAB, the start of my own Miami Tech weekend.

 

The Whiteboard

2013-02-23 18.15.36Throughout the hackathon, I had done sketches and drawings on the whiteboard that I had brought with me. I scribbled on it and took pictures of my wacky drawings, strange designs and offbeat ideas.

The art drawing and the conversation with Oscar helped start the engine of the idea I was longing for. It wouldn’t use any of the APIs featured in the competition, and it was an “art” application that I wanted to use. A little selfish I thought, but I remembered one of the SuperConf talks the day prior, where a certain line of Drew Wilson’s presentation stuck out.

“What do you wish existed? Build that.”

I began to write down my idea, opening the floodgates that hadn’t been opened since starting up my tiny blog.

The whiteboard wouldn’t be the home to strange drawings and art; it would be where I would make my idea first come to life.

 

Stepping Into The LAB

 Wynwood

“Where do I park?”

I rolled down my window and asked the bystanders outside The LAB Miami where I should park in this newfound territory.

Located in the heart of Wynwood, a community known for it’s art and fashion, The LAB is a technology hub for like-minded individuals to meet and work together. The LAB was also where the SuperConf workshops were to take place.

HotDogI had signed up for the Design workshop series so I could learn more about application design and web development, the field I’d been playing with thanks to my previous work.

I had seen pictures of The LAB online, but walking in gave me a vibe I hadn’t felt since working in the Crimson office.

I was in a place where ideas were born, polished, worked on and released. It was an exciting space, something I’d never step foot in before. A co-working space.

I expected a dude in a wizard robe to erupt from one of the rooms and give me a tour of this magical place in Miami.

The LAB featured a great open space, whiteboards around every corner and rooms for teams to work in. Almost everything in The LAB was modular. Some of the art inside was also fun to observe – I enjoyed the smiling, walking green hot dog. He looked particularly happy.

Jason Calleiro and David Eglena, whom I met earlier outside The LAB, led the first part of the design workshop. This would be the first of many lessons that would continue throughout the weekend.

 

Meeting Ruby (and Ruby on Rails)

After dinner was provided by the organizers of UHack (“real food” as one hacker stated, including teriyaki chicken and sushi), I researched how I could make my fledgling idea work. WordPress wouldn’t be enough, I thought, and while I had a brief introduction to Bootstrap earlier in the day by a fellow hacker, I lacked experience building websites with it. If I wanted to build something, I needed a refresher on HTML and CSS.

Scouring the web for help, I stumbled across an article by Adam Pash on Lifehacker, as he told his story on how he made his web application with no experience.

An inspirational story, I thought. However Adam had made his application over the process of a year. I had 12 hours to come up with a working demo.

Being the only member in my nonexistent team, I made the decision to try Ruby, and its counterpart Ruby on Rails. Instead of attempting to build something, I decided to dedicate my time to learn.

tryruby

From tryruby.org

What followed was my first interaction with Ruby, through tryruby.org.

A charming site, in vein of a storybook not unlike Winnie the Pooh. It went over several processes of Ruby, and demonstrated how to make a basic site using Ruby. It could have been deliriousness, but I was captured by the charm of the site. I completed the lessons and then went to Rails for Zombies to get started on Ruby on Rails.

Using a zombie theme, Rails for Zombies teaches users the basics of Ruby on Rails. It wasn’t as charming as the storybook theme, but found its spark in a humorous brain-craving zombie theme. Over the next two hours I found myself listening to CodeSchool founder Gregg Pollack again, this time teaching me about Ruby on Rails the through a video online, instead teaching on stage like I had seen at SuperConf a day earlier.

 

Designing and Developing

Jason and David would begin their lesson by demonstrating the creation of an app interface.

Working with Photoshop, we went over tricks and tips on designing an app interface for mobile devices. But unlike the others in the room, I was relatively new to Photoshop.

A couple of days prior, I began fooling around with Photoshop, since I’d never used the tool extensively before. Some of my friends told me I should make a bird with arms to learn Photoshop. Brilliant.

Forty minutes later, I would make my first Photoshopped image and my first bird with arms. A grand achievement.

Before we knew it, the app design workshop had ended. Up next would be Nathan Barry, who was sitting among us during the design workshop.

Nathan would lead us through more theory than hands-on training, pointing out things such as the user experience, visual cues on websites and designing the best site for your users.

Just as the app design workshop flew by, the web development workshop ended quickly. I wished for more lessons, as I learned a great deal during the time we had spent in the workroom in The LAB. Nonetheless, I was greatly appreciative of this new-found knowledge. After being exposed to such knowledge, I knew I could learn more.

A reasonable tradeoff for the quick ending of the workshop was the arrival of food trucks outside The LAB. Fish tacos, burgers, fries and other delicacies awaited. Without hesitation I stormed off to the trucks to feed my body, after having my mind stuffed with new information.

Free food is always welcome.

 FoodTrucks

 

What is an apple?

The hourly late night giveaways held by the UHack organizers had ended at 5 a.m, and everyone that had stayed in hopes of winning a prize left the building. Others continued to work on their project, and I sat there staring at my computer screen and my whiteboard. All the time I spent on Rails for Zombies ended up turning me into a zombie craving food.

Just like I had done a few days prior, I was hungry after devouring loads of information. I observed that the snacks at the hackathon had dwindled, thanks to the hungry student developers and designers. The only sustenance that remained were some cold drinks, a handful of snacks and fruit.

I walked around the room en route to the available nutrition, as my legs needed some movement. Wandering, I saw everyone still working on their projects, and tiredness was setting in around the room. There were only seven hours left, and some students whom I had seen earlier were no longer there.

I continued to stay, despite my lack of a demo.

As a reward for learning general basics of Ruby and Ruby on Rails, I grabbed a red apple. It was one of the few remaining snacks before breakfast would arrive.

Sitting back down in my workspace, I erased my whiteboard and placed the apple on the middle of the board. I began to write, “This is an apple.” I then listed all the features and bugs of the apple, making note of the “inedible” core, and forgetting about the fact apples can be home to actual bugs.

2013-02-24 05.39.07

I was too tired. I wanted to learn and code more. I was fighting against myself. The demo was incredibly unlikely, and no miracle was going to happen in order to make my tiny idea come to fruition.

I munched on the apple and erased my crazed writings on the board. I just relaxed and looked at the outside world again.

Instead of an orange sunset welcoming us to a new day, fog had filled the outside world. Gray, dark and unknown, I didn’t know Miami could become so foggy. It felt like I was in another world.

Amidst this deliriousness, I took solace that I at least had an idea.

One that I really wanted to exist.

 

Superheroes

 Lobby

I arrived at the Miami Convention Center on Friday around 7:30 a.m. I was still processing all the concepts I learned at The LAB on the previous day. I had no idea what to expect from the day’s upcoming talks.

I waited patiently for someone from the conference to show up, which would happen an hour after my arrival. At the lobby I met Peter and Brad, both part of the team helping run SuperConf. I learned about RefreshMiami firsthand in my conversation with the SuperConf team members, a tech community in Miami, another staple of the Miami tech scene.

Then the director of RefreshMiami, Brian Breslin, showed up and introduced himself to me. After conversing with Brad, Peter and Brian, I brought up the RefreshMiami page on Facebook and requested to be added to the group.

While waiting for the conference to start I looked through the list of the SuperConf speakers, all from different backgrounds and fields. They all had their respective shares of success, thus earning them the title of “Super.” Just like the comic-book heroes I saw roaming the halls of comic-book conventions prior, except these heroes had success, experiences and stories in the world of technology that they were going to share to those attending SuperConf.

I finally enter the auditorium, and take a seat near the front of the SuperConf stage. It felt like a lecture hall in college, and the some attendees had their laptops at the ready like students in a college lecture.

2013-02-22 16.59.04

I was also waiting for breakfast to arrive, and had mistakenly called Peter another name, while trying to get his attention. I managed to grab Peter’s attention with an arm wave, asking about the ETA for breakfast, but I realized like some goof, I had already messed up someone’s name at the conference. After that, I kept to myself in the auditorium, didn’t need to embarrass myself any further.

Breakfast arrived, and I went back to the lobby to grab a bagel. The first talk was going to begin, despite the schedule getting a bit behind.

Finally Auston Bunsen, one heads of SuperConf, took to the stage and welcomed us before introducing the first speaker, John Higgins, Founder and Evangelist at Tropo.

John would talk to us about passion, and told the audience his own personal story and experiences on how he got to where he was, including his own falls and his return to the tech field. It was a compelling story, from becoming the founder of different startups in the ‘90s to becoming involved with an independent movie company, and back to a company he had originally founded. I found it entertaining to hear such a progression in one’s career, and I thought about my own path, which was still unwritten.

Auston would return after John’s presentation and introduce Juan Diego Calle, the CEO at .CO, and Brian, who I met earlier, for a Q & A session. Brian asked questions, which led to Juan Diego Calle to tell his story behind .CO and his own background and his success. One of Juan’s comments struck a switch inside me: “Surround yourself with people better than you.” I thought it was a true statement, as I thought about tomorrow’s hackathon at UM.

Then came Kerem Suer, a designer, to talk about design and how he fell in love with his field. He emphasized the importance of design, and how designers solve communication problems between technology and humans. A fun talk, especially one moment when Kerem discussed what his elders thought what being a designer meant. His dad in particular thought he “played games on his computer,” a far cry from Kerem’s actual job.

Drew Wilson, both a designer and developer, took the stage to continue the design discussion. A book giveaway took place during the presentation, featuring the .gif with Oprah providing bees to the audience with glee, as Drew gave away copies of his book, Execute, to the audience. The gif was so unexpected, it caught the audience by surprise as we all laughed at the unexpected twist in the presentation. Outside of the giveaway, Drew focused on designing and developing products that didn’t just meet the need of users, but were products we wanted to build and use.

I learned a great deal from the talks, and was excited at my own future. After Drew’s talk, Auston took to the stage to signal the lunch break for the conference.

A stranger to Miami’s downtown, I decided to enjoy my lunch inside the convention center, where I would network with fellow attendees such as Albizu Garcia, Founder and CEO of BigPropeller, and Carl Hildebrand from The Wolfsonian museum. I listened to their stories, such an adventure at SXSW. I engaged in the conversation, and learned an extra chunk of information outside of the auditorium.

I made my way back to the auditorium, and ran into Auston who had said hello to me, unexpectedly. We struck up a quick conversation, where I had told him I was working on a piece about SuperConf, although I had no idea I would end up writing more than “a piece about SuperConf.”

 

Nap

After reviewing some HTML after breakfast, my own tiredness began to settle in. I wasn’t going to have a demo by noon; it was inevitable. Going into UHack, I had some programming and web design experience, and my strength, WordPress, wasn’t enough to work for my idea.

I didn’t know what to do for the remaining time. I had observed others taking naps on the couches in the room throughout the hackathon, and it looked like a great idea. I had consumed more than enough knowledge in the past couple of hours, and rest was in order.

I put my laptop to sleep, after having worked on it for the past 18 hours. I got up from my chair, and laid down on the couch near my circular table.

I closed my eyes, and that little idea was going through my mind as I napped.

 

The Future

 2013-02-22 14.30.37

I’m looking at a T-800 Terminator up on the projector screen in the auditorium.

It brought back memories of an assignment I had done in high school where we gave mock presentations. At the time, Terminator Salvation was about to be released, so I made a quick mock presentation from Cyberdyne, the evil coorporation that led to the destruction of mankind from the Terminator movies. My final slide of that Cyberdyne presentation was marketing the T-800 to the audience. My teacher loved it.

In the auditorium, I was again looking at the same T-800 image as it symbolized something else outside of being a death machine in the Terminator movies.

The future.

Adam D’angello, associate at TrueVentures, would be the first speaker to tackle the crowd after lunch, with his talk on how computers think, discussing the history of artificial intelligence and the great potential AI has with the future. I enjoyed the idea of the combination of humanity and technology, which would make humans more efficient, not like actual androids however, as cool as that would be. (I’d sign up for the beta test for that one.)

Sam Soffes, VP of Engineering at SeeSaw, then discussed real time apps, a discussion geared more to developers. I did my best to follow, being a young developer with that programming experience under my belt, and heard some familiar terms and new terms such as Ruby on Rails. As the talk progressed, I kicked myself for not being able to follow the advanced concepts Sam discussed in regards to real time apps.

Gregg Pollack, founder of CodeSchool, came to the stage to discuss online learning with some good examples from across the web. He went over some startups that provided good sources of online learning, and pointed out features the audience could learn from. Again, the idea of the future returned, as Gregg would leave the audience to think about the potential of online learning in the future. I liked the idea of online learning, and seeing the examples presented made me excited to see what other developers could come up with.

Jason Webster, CTO at MetaLab Design, went off the idea that “Software is not fashion,” bringing to mind of how fashion designers typically shoot for perfection in their products, paralleling the designer’s obsession of making something perfect. His discussion covered how his company develops products, utilizing all the skills available to the best of everyone’s abilities. A nice reminder to everyone that effective collaboration can lead to extraordinary products.

A quick break after Jason’s talk, and moments later Neil Patel, founder of KISSMetrics and CrazyEgg, would deliver the final talk.

His presentation covered the metrics everyone should track on their products, an incredible talk on analytics and the importance of metrics for companies. Focusing on key metrics and analysis would help those in the audience to improve their revenue on their products and companies. I wasn’t at that level yet, but took notes because of the importance metrics would be in the future. Neil made me enjoy numbers again, which I thought was an incredible feat.

Time flew, and with Auston’s final comments the conference was over.

I wasn’t going to the after party promoted throughout the conference, despite the offer of an open bar and a good networking opportunity, because I needed my rest and energy for the weekend. Free beer would have to wait.

I packed up my laptop, walked over to the parking garage and made my way home to prepare myself for UHack. An orange hue filled the sky. The sun was setting. I drove off to the west of Miami, away from the busy downtown.

The SuperConf talks still buzzed through my mind as I mentally prepared myself for the hackathon at UM.

 

Dreams

I don’t remember all the details about my dream as I napped.

Some events had occurred, in a war setting. The sky was brown, dark and filled with smoke.

Familiar faces had from the hackathon were in the dream. They were soldiers alongside me on the battlefront.

I didn’t know what was the war about. But we were fighting.

The last thing I remembered was a bright explosion, which woke me up.

 

Press Start

“This place is a freaking maze.”

I’d never been inside the University of Miami’s campus before, save for two different graduations held at the Bank United Center.

I finally found a parking garage somewhere in the middle of the campus, and got directions to the UM University Center. I had my backpack, laptop, whiteboard and brain all ready to go.

I was going into the hackathon having no clue what I was going to embark on for the following 24 hours. Despite being inspired, prepared and motivated to partake in UHack thanks to SuperConf and my passion for technology. I was going in alone, to a place I’d never been. Not UM, but the hackathon.

After a quick stroll across the UM campus, a friendly sign from UHack welcomed me to the UM University Center.

The first floor of the University Center was nearly empty. It was a Saturday, and the bored employee at the information desk was looking down at his desk knowing few would be in the area to ask for help. I went up the stairs to search for the hackathon.

2013-02-23 11.58.24Another UHack sign pointed me in the direction where the event was taking place. I registered and grabbed my UHack badge, free shirt and began to look across the second floor for a place to settle.

Some teams had already been assembled, and computers filled the room. I quickly scanned the room for the location I’d be at for the next 24 hours. The location of a power outlet was important in this decision.

I took a seat next to the projector that had been set up in the room, as the cart holding the projector had a powerstrip on it. I plugged in my laptop, drew up a welcome message on my whiteboard to fellow FIU students (and anyone else that wanted to say hi), and passed the time by browsing the internet.

Carl from The Wolfsonian, whom I had met at SuperConf the prior day during the lunch break, had shown up. I yelled out to him and waved, having some comfort that I saw a familiar face in a sea of new people.

We sat down at my circular table, and had another chat about design and the tech scene in Miami, as we had during lunch at SuperConf. I learned that he wouldn’t be staying the entire 24 hours, unlike me.

 2013-02-23 11.58.01

The hackathon finally kicked off at noon. There were API demos from the different companies at the competition such as Microsoft, Sendgrid and the City of Miami Beach. The promise of prizes was reiterated to the crowd from the companies after their presentations.

I was located right next to the microphone, which was offered to the crowd to allow people to market themselves to form up teams for the hackathon.

Downplaying my own skill, I felt like I wouldn’t be a good addition to anyone at the hackathon. As I looked around the room, I felt like I was in the presence of giants as I predicted before I signed up for the hackathon.

These students had mountains of experience compared to me. All I had was some WordPress skills, some experience with programming and Photoshop, and my own imagination and creativity.

Carl encouraged me to get on a team and make something, which I took into consideration. However, what team would want me? Some random student from FIU that wasn’t even a computer science or information technology major?

Ultimately, I worked alone, and for the following hours, I’d spend it in my own mind and online. Thinking, drawing on my whiteboard and browsing the internet for ideas. Here I was, after having gone through two days of learning and inspirational talks at SuperConf, on the second floor of the University Center of UM with zero experience making actual apps and working alone for a hackathon.

2013-02-23 15.15.48Any outside bystander would probably guess I was a recipe for disaster, and would think that I would leave before midnight because I wasn’t on the level like the other students. I didn’t have a chance to win anything.

Suddenly a mini-contest took place at the hackathon, where hackers were encouraged to tweet the hashtag #uhack and provide a creative picture or tweet about the competition. The winner would get a GitHub hoodie.

I submitted a tweet to the contest. I took a picture of my whiteboard drawing detailing my thought process, featuring a thought bubble that resembled a spider web. I ended up winning the hoodie because of my whiteboard art, a nice prize from a hackathon I didn’t think I had a chance at winning.

Of course the competition wasn’t about drawing on whiteboards and having a cool tweet and picture; it was about making an application about art.

Thus began the struggle.

 

Twenty-Four

I watched the clock count down to the final seconds of the hackathon, debating whether I should present my idea that lacked any physical presence.

I had made it through the hackathon, but I had nothing to show. All I had was my little idea that sat in my mind. Bouncing around like a ball at a playground.

So I let the clock hit zero.

A sigh of universal relief was felt throughout the room as the hackathon had finally ended. The only remaining things to do were to enjoy lunch and present the apps to the judges.

I wasn’t hungry. I was a little disappointed in myself for not having anything to present. I reminded myself of everything that had occurred in the past 24 hours.

I thought more, I coded more, I drew more, I designed more and I learned more than I had ever done in one day. The only thing I hadn’t done was write more, but I decided I would take care of that at another time.

The presentations flew by, as each team had three minutes to present their project that they had worked on for 24 hours. I watched in awe at all the work everyone had done. I had even more respect for everyone in the room, as I was with them as they worked throughout the whole hackathon. I saw the results of their work, which remained impressive to me.

2013-02-24 14.22.29During the presentations Oscar would name drop SuperConf, to which I let out a very tired “woo” celebrating the conference. I’d later learn some people thought I said “boo,” the total opposite of what I meant.

After the presentations, the judges did their judging off in a corner of the room, and minutes later they would announce the winners. The winners group would include Christopher Knowles, a Junior in Information Technology from FIU.

Christopher told me “The anxiety and the pressure definitely got to me, as terrifying as failing was, seeing everyone else develop, changed the idea of failure for me. I went from being afraid from not having something that didn’t work 100% to not having anything at all.”

“And I ended up with a freakin robot [Sphero] and a copy of Halo 4!”

I flirted with the idea that one day maybe I could be up there in the winners’ circle. Here I was in the audience, despite having spent the entirety at the hackathon, with nothing to show.

But I had done so much. I gave myself a pat on the back for trying and for doing so much in the past day.

Afterwards, I did a little post-hackathon networking. I said my goodbyes, packed up and left the second floor that I had resided in for over 24 hours.

 

The End

2013-02-24 15.34.07

I left the way I came from the UM University Center, but as I traveled through the building, I was a different person.

I had a new found thirst for becoming more involved with technology. Going to future tech events would help satiate that thirst, along with personal projects and meeting up with local tech groups.

The world outside was fresh: the warm air, the bright sun, the blue sky and the colorful gardens around UM.

I walked past people that would have never thought that I had spent the previous 24 hours on the second floor of UM’s University Center learning, coding, researching, designing, drawing and thinking.

I didn’t win the hackathon, but I gained so much more. I had the potential to do more. The hackathon proved that. I found myself at the start of a new journey involving technology thanks to the events I had participated in.

I looked back at the past couple of days: the workshops at The LAB, the talks at the Miami Convention Center and the hackathon at UM. I was now a part of the Miami tech scene, just by participating and going out to events.

I was wrong; Miami has a community that loves technology.

Not only had I learned and experienced so much, but I had something that I never expected 24 hours ago.

My car was a couple meters away, and I smiled.

 

“I have an idea.”

About the Author

Luis Bolaños
: FIUSM.com webmaster, avid techie, majoring in Information Technology and Digital Media Studies, likes video games and writing about them too.

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