Understanding Hackathons: A Conversation with GitHub's Thomas Dohmke & Kyle Daigle at HackCT

In this episode, I have the privilege of speaking with Thomas, the CEO, and Kyle, the COO, of GitHub. We discuss the HackCT event in Connecticut, focusing on its educational and societal impact.

The conversation offers insights into what hackathons are, their history, and why they are important for technological progress.

We even delve into how GitHub itself originated from a similar collaborative environment. Join us for a thoughtful discussion on the influence and importance of hackathons in today's tech landscape.

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hey, what's up internet? It's Chris Krug and I'm here at the HackCT in Connecticut, and I made a couple new friends here

(00:06):
Would you guys say hello to yourselves introduce yourself? Hey, I'm Thomas. I'm the CEO of GitHub. And hey everybody I'm Kyle
I'm the COO at GitHub. So we're just getting kicked off here tonight with a little opening reception
But we've all come here together to convene a bunch of geeks who are getting together
around some open source
transportation data, building apps. Tell me a little bit about how you understand the event that you're getting up here tonight.

(00:27):
Yeah, we at GitHub are the home of all developers and we really love to support these kind of events that people come together
Use open source, use GitHub to build cool stuff that brings our society forward.
I bet you've been involved in a lot of hackathons over the years.
I've been a developer for 30 years. My promote was 64 t-shirt here
And so I've done a fair number of hacks myself and obviously we've also supported all of them

(00:50):
There's a lot of people that don't really on the surface understand what a hackathon is
So would you just give my mom and some other executives watching this
a little overview of what a hackathon is exactly?
Yeah, a hackathon is where hackers, software developers come together
Typically they bring their laptops and they form little groups and they think about what could they build in a couple of nights

(01:11):
Sometimes some of them work 24-7 until Sunday evening and they go home and so they build software that advances an idea, a new
concept. Maybe we will see some AI projects here.
I'm building a lot of AI projects.
It's a big thing and then at the end they have made new friends, explored new ideas and maybe they put some new open source on GitHub.
Yeah, absolutely. I don't see how to accomplish the mission without doing it.

(01:34):
Like the legend in the tech community is that cool shit gets built at this fast.
Yeah, that real code gets written, real things get done.
So from your 30 years experience and view across, tell me a couple of magic stories
you heard of, shit that matters, that we use, that can be built at hackathons like this.
Do we have any ideas?
Yeah, GitHub itself actually started in a bar.

(01:56):
It was a project where a couple developers wanted to make it easier to share code with each other
and so they decided to put their laptops at a bar over many months
and that's how GitHub actually started, a couple of friends over drinks just trying out a new idea.
Amazing. How much time did they spend getting the first iteration back together?
Oh man, I think the first version of GitHub we were looking at the commits was about a month.
Yeah, just to get that first thing through and then how many years later, 15 years later?

(02:20):
15 and a half, we're almost 16 now.
What are some cool things you guys have heard being invented in a weekend or something like that?
Hmm, I don't know.
I feel like a lot of original ideas that end up being startups happen in a weekend
where some of the robotics projects take their shape, like CubeSat I believe was the name of the hackathon project

(02:42):
that started and so usually what starts at a hackathon doesn't always end up being the final thing.
A lot of these AI tools right now are getting built as hackathons because
mostly they're just recipes of things that exist out there already and people are putting them together
in like unique ways for bespoke industries and given like I'm just building a ridership AI chatbot
that appears when I'm going where my options are hidden and what's the cheapest one?

(03:04):
Sure.
Most of these hackathons we have people that really care about the roads that meets up
that makes the thing more accessible, protect your voice or synthesize your voice
so here it's all about transportation and you spend so many cash.
That's a great point right? A whole bunch of people bust in some.
Uber, First Order Geeks bust in. They're not getting paid.
They maybe want to work on advancing their own code base or their own ideas

(03:27):
but they're here to make things better. Cool.
Hey I appreciate you guys taking the time with me to tell some stories and stuff.
Anything else you want to say before we sign off here?
I'm super stoked to be here. I live in Connecticut.
It's a remote company. We've got people all around the world.
And so to be home working on a hackathon where we can make a difference
in the world's biggest team sport open source software, I'm going to be more excited.
So it's great to be here at home doing this.

(03:48):
Thanks for bringing it.
Yeah, so excited to see all these developers bringing something new to the world.
Hopefully we see lots of happy developers, which is a cool project by the end of the weekend.
Thanks so much guys, really appreciate it.
I'm over and out for now internet.