Student developers, designers, and data enthusiasts will be attending the Midwest Big Data Hackathon October 8-9 at the University of Iowa. The two-day event will bring together members of the data community to develop creative ideas for big data applications. Participants will collaborate on exciting big data projects. The event is free, and participants will enjoy free meals, compete for prizes, and receive awesome swag.

All students are welcome to join the event to work on innovative project ideas. All that is needed is an interest in working with big data (e.g., geoinformatics, health and biological sciences, business, digital agriculture, bioinformatics, data analytics, hydroinformatics, etc.). Major cross-cutting areas for the hackathon will include data visualization, visual analytics, big data management, scientific computing (HPC, Cloud, GPU), virtual and augmented reality applications, novel hardware applications, and cyber-learning systems.

Faculty members from several universities will serve as project mentors and judges, and representatives of industry sponsors will be on hand for the showcase. IIHR—Hydroscience & Engineering and the Iowa Flood Center are among the event’s sponsors.

To learn more about the hackathon, visit http://bigdata.uiowa.edu or contact event chair Ibrahim Demir at the University of Iowa.