A two-month hackathon on a remote tropical island

Retreats to exotic locales are fashionable in the tech startup scene these days. There’s Blueseed, an incubator held on a ship off the coast of Silicon Valley, and Unreasonable at Sea, an accelerator-on-a-ship that will set sail to 14 countries.

How about a two-month hackathon on a remote tropical island?

Walter Heck, a Dutch serial entrepreneur based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, wants to make it happen. He is calling it Come Hack With Us, and he is shooting for an island either in the Philippines, Thailand, and Malaysia.

He is also seeking 12 programmers, UI/UX specialists, and the like to join him on this sojourn. Applicants must submit a proposal of how they want to spend their time, while selected ones will have to make their own way to the island and pay a small fee. Cooking and cleaning will be provided for, fortunately.

Walter was inspired to organize the event because of his three-month trip in Alaska, where he fell in love with the experience of being in a single location with a group of inspiring and motivated individuals. He hopes to recreate the experience, betting that the isolation would boost the creativity of those involved.

To make the event happen, he is currently seeking sponsors to cover costs. He has generated quite a lot of public interesting, receiving some 8,000 visitors to the website, 500 emails, and enquiries from two potential sponsors and two documentary makers. He has also received coverage from BBC, Yahoo!, and more.

Walter hopes to start the hackathon by end 2012 or early 2013.

Photo: Aaron Escobar

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