But the truth of the matter IMO is that this deserved to be recognized and celebrated. It's really exciting to see environments that expose people to the joy of making things and the realities of making things happen. This kind of culture was foreign at the major liberal arts universities I saw when I was an undergrad 5-10 years ago, and I think it's a positive change. Congrats!
(I organize HackMIT, our big hackathon)
One of the most rewarding things I've ever done.
I find Penn's breakout achievements far more impressive given their much smaller student body, as well as what Columbia/NYU have done with hackNY.
However I was there opening night at MHacks and what that crew pulled off was nothing short of amazing. There was incredible energy in the building that night.
I came to Ann Arbor from LA in 2009 in order to build stuff in a hacker-friendly and foodie town that is a financially rational place to live.
But I didn't expect to find this community of startupy freaks at UM. They are gung-ho in a lets-go-to-the-football-game sort of way. They are often innocent to technological limits, and at times godawfully ruthless. I also notice a particular affinity for building things quickly and then moving on. But they are doing amazing work at MPowered and have roped in a lot of people who would have otherwise marched into corporate oblivion.
UMich hackathon culture is what germinated my current startup, rapt.fm, in January, 2012. A lot of folks involved in MPowered helped the demo get built on that weekend and put in a lot of hours throughout the buildup since then, (including David, the writer of the article).
As great as it is for Michigan, I do think that most of these folks will head out to the Bay Area. But enough will stick around here where the woods run deep and the people are happy.
Also, MPowered is our university entrepreneurship club. In my experience with them, it is mostly filled with business people trying to find software guys to build their stuff for them. However, apparently there is an incubator that has most of the people that actually build, but I never saw them too much.
Go Blue! Can't wait to see what they will do next year.
I would love to see another post, detailing the other side of UM's success; the long hours students spent training, and preparing for a hackathon. Everyone loves to make the claim that they showed up at a hackathon, learned how to program some new language, and take top 3 at a hackathon. What many posts fail to address are what was done to rally the students around such causes and get them both mentally and technically prepared for a hackathon.
Great job David et al, can't wait to see what's next!
