Microsoft has come up with another hackathon for students today, called WOWZAPP 2012 which is taking place all over the world including 14 cities in India where almost 3500 students seem to have registered for the event. Globally, more than 16,500 students at 112 locations across 53 countries are expected to take part in the event. Microsoft has been riding on the wave of excitement generated after the recent marathon launch event held in America, after which the Build developer conference was held.
“WOWZAPP 2012 will be the largest simultaneous hackathon of student developers ever, acting as a catalyst to bring a wealth of new, exciting and quality apps to the Windows Store,” said Moorthy Uppaluri, general manager of Worldwide Academic Programs at Microsoft.
According to Microsoft, participants will have software development tools such as Visual Studio Express for Windows 8 and a Windows Store registration key available for free through the Microsoft Dreamspark program. Moreover, professional experts, trainers and corporate executives will be present at the locations to answer any questions or help the participating developers while developing their apps. There will also be a lot of speaker sessions that will be broadcast live from a number of locations and recored otherwise, which can be viewed here. A global list of streams for live and archived sessions from worldwide locations can be accessed here. The event appears to be a great deal of learning opportunity where people related to the Windows ecosystem will be able to connect and interact with one another.
The software giant has been pushing its limits and making all efforts to get developers to start building for its Windows 8 ecosystem. It has been regularly conducting events like the recent Windows App Fest held at Bangalore in September that created a Guinness World Record for the maximum number of developers coding at a single location. Looking at these efforts and the kind of participation it is receiving, it would not be oversight to predict that the prospects in the Indian developer ecosystem for Windows look bright, commercial success however is a different story entirely.
The apps that the participants create during this hackathon will be eligible to be entered in Microsoft’s Imagine Cup competition where they will be able to win $300,000 as a cash prize.
