Soho House x 3beards hackathon: My climb for the silver

For those of you who do not know the Soho House, it is a prestigious country club-like-establishment where members have the luxury of fine dining, cool meetups, and a sweet rooftop pool.  As if these amenities in themselves weren’t cool enough, Soho House  joined up with the guys from 3beards to put on a bougie hackathon this past weekend. I had the honor of being invited to participate in the event.

As per the usual routine with most hackathons, teams were given the usual 24 hours to complete their hacks. The twist was that they had to convert data into New York themed art.  When the “games” began, I teamed up with my buddy Justin from the Startup Institute.

Our idea: ever since the birth of the stock market, traders and investors could only see how their portfolio was doing.  We wanted to change this. Investors should be able to hear how their investments are doing, like a beautiful symphony of dollar signs!  The idea was,  if your stocks are doing well, they would play a harmonious tune and if your stocks are doing bad, they would sound like a soundtrack out of a horror film. With Justin sporting his music and front end development skills and me rocking the front and back end game, we set off for the gold.

As we hacked our hearts out, we also dined on meals some of the best food I’ve ever had at a hackathon.  It truly was like eating at a five star restaurant - delicious salmon, paninis, coconut water; the list goes on and on. When the countdown struck zero, it was time for each team to present their ideas. The judges went to deliberate, and we were escorted to room to await the final decision. The open bar looked like something straight out of The Matrix, specifically the scene where Morpheus asks Neo to choose to take either the blue pill or the red pill.

Third place went to a team who developed an application that allowed users to take pictures and overlay them one on top of the other to form superimposed photos. Second place went to me and Justin for our app which, as previously mentioned, converts a stock’s performance into audio. First place went to team ChillZone who developed an “anti-Foursquare”.  Their app looks at NYC Facebook checkins and determines if certain spots are crowded or not.  Less crowded spots are deemed “chill-zones” to go to and, well, just chill. There were many awesome ideas and, as the British often practices (3beards is a British company), everybody got a prize in the end!  I walked away with some sweet Ten shades (pictured above). Thanks for a great time Soho House and 3beards!

By Tyler Nappy