Hackathons
APIs in the
Trenches…
Hackathon Stories
Going from API -> APP
My First Hackathon – Factual API (2011)
My First Hackathon – Factual (2011)
A few weeks ago…
Quit my day job,
… and went to a hackathon
HP Hackathon a few weeks ago….
And today another
hackathon was
announced...
Biggest Hackathon ever..
Maybe make Hackathons a
full time job?
Is a full time hackathoner
the person you want
building on your APIs?
“will you come be our
evangelist?”
All my old hackathon projects
Why hack and
why APIs?
• Worked at Mashery as Sales Engineer
• Worked at Alcatel Lucent as Evangelist
for mobile tool (Open Plug) and Telco
API Evangelist
• Worked at Layer 7 as API Evangelist

• Currently a mobile app developer,
architecture consultant and trainer
Why Hackathons are
leading a Business
Revolution
Evolving Software Methodologies
Waterfall
Iterative
Agile
Scrum
APIs Enable a Leaner Startup

Intrapreneur
Hack your Organization

•Rapid Prototyping
•Get inspired
•Execute on Ideas
Back on Topic…
Going from API -> APP
How to go from Mobile Web to Native?
A multiple phone web based application
framework is a software framework that
is designed to support the development
of phone applications that are written
as embedded dynamic websites and
may leverage native phone capabilities,
like geo data or contact lists.
From Wikipedia
What Identifies a Hybrid Native App?

•
•
•
•
•

Non-native UI Controls
Slow Performance
Lack of Snappiness
Available on All Platforms
Built Quickly
Why I believe Cross Platform will win
• Fast development
• Leverage Javascript knowledge on
Mobile
• Lots of VC dollars invested in it
• Passionate technical founders of
startups
• We got inspired by hackathons…
What tools out there
enable our
organization to take
APIs and make Apps?
How to go from Mobile Web to Hybrid Native?
PhoneGap Architecture Explained
Mobile UI Frameworks
Mobile App Specific IDEs
What about getting
my APIs integrated
into my apps?
Innovative Tools like Appery.io
Mobile Backend as a Service – What?
Feature

Functionality

Identity

SSO, User Mgmt, Auth at API Layer

Persistence

Offline Mode, Data Syncing, Caching

Messaging

Push Notifications, Email, SMS

Orchestration

Server Side Code, API Integration
Mobile Backend Providers
APIs -> Apps
Hackathons!!
Question and Answer

Thank you
@intalex

API Strategy & Practice Conference - API Consumption from the Hackathon Trenches