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Microsoft and Facebook announced that they will host a hackathon later this month at Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif.
The Facebook-Microsoft hackathon will run from 6 p.m. PST on Jan. 17 to 12 p.m. PST on Jan. 18. At the event, developers will learn to build apps for Windows and Windows Phone, and they will engage with Microsoft and Facebook engineers to integrate Facebook Login and other social products into their Windows and Windows Phone apps.
“A number of our engineers along with Facebook’s engineers will be there working with developers to show how easily you can deeply integrate across both the Windows and Windows Phone apps,” said Steve “Guggs” Guggenheimer, corporate vice president of Developer Platform & Evangelism and chief evangelist for Microsoft, in a blog post. “We’ll be offering 1:1 assistance along with some great speakers that will help jumpstart any app efforts you have.”
Guggenheimer said Microsoft and Facebook continue to partner on behalf of the developer community, and this hackathon helps developers in three key ways. One is by helping them deliver unique consumer experiences. “Through the Facebook Login API for Windows and Windows Phone, developers can create unique consumer experiences due to the seamless integration with Microsoft products that consumers already use every day (i.e. Bing, Outlook, others),” he said.
The event will also highlight how developers can leverage the tools and scale enabled by the Facebook and Microsoft platforms. “Shared code means developers spend less time coding and more time making apps interesting and easy to use,” Guggenheimer said. “The common core across the Windows platform helps developers scale their resources to quickly build Facebook-connected apps across multiple devices though reusable codes, libraries, and other helpful open-sourced tools.”
In addition, the hackathon will look at how to improve technology and economics for developers. “Since 2007, Microsoft and Facebook have partnered to evolve both technology and the macroeconomics that impact technical employees and consumers,” Guggenheimer wrote. “This latest developer toolkit is just one example of the way the Microsoft and Facebook continue to help developers of all skill sets be successful on the platforms.”
More information on the event and registration for it can be found here.
Meanwhile, Microsoft also announced plans for a Microsoft Big Data Hackathon, which will be held Feb. 8 at the Microsoft Silicon Valley Campus in Mountain View, Calif. The event will start at 9:30 a.m. PST on Feb. 8 and will run through 3 p.m. PST on Feb. 9. This event is co-hosted by Hortonworks and Elastacloud. Hortonworks provides Apache Hadoop for Windows and powers Windows Azure HDInsight.
A description of the event on its registration page reads: “The Microsoft big data hackathon is your opportunity to hack for a good cause. Assemble a team, learn and share, and make friends. Listen to talks on big data and data science. Develop and hack in the language of your choice, such as Python, R, Hadoop, or .NET. There will be prizes, free goodies, food and drinks, and loads of snacks. This is your opportunity to have a fun data science weekend while learning about Microsoft’s big data technologies and doing good for your fellow man.”