Last weekend I mentored the participants of the Startup Hackathon here in Melbourne (startuphack.org). In theirs words, “Startup Hackathon is a 48 hour marathon of coding, pizza, and red bull”.

When we moved to Melbourne to start www.rome2rio.com, we never anticipated the flourishing Startup scene that would await us here. We decided to spread the word by posting our very first blog entry on the subject (blog.rome2rio.com/start-up-life-in-melbourne-0). We’ve since been helping out any way we can (blog.rome2rio.com/out-and-about-in-melbourne-spreading-the-word). When Amir asked us to provide some mentorship to the students over the weekend, we jumped at the opportunity.

The event was huge! There were over 50 university students participating – and one high schooler who quietly snuck in. The event was held at the Inspire9 co-working space (www.inspire9.com.au). Most people stayed there the entire 48 hours, catching an hour of sleep now and then in one of the Skype booths. I had the luxury of going home on Friday (at 2am) and sleeping in on Saturday. I came back on Sunday to see the final presentations and have a retrospective chat with all the red-eyes in the room.

Here are the teams that participated and a link to their project site (in no particular order). I don’t know how long these sites will stay online, since most of them were just created for fun.

• readachunk.com - Read books one chunk at a time.
• lookingatyounow – An online version of “Here’s looking at you” in MX.
• findmyti – A calendar that automatically schedules tasks.
• bitbuysell – Charge BitCoin purchased to your mobile bill.
• wheredoistart.net - Motivation for the un-inspired.
• teaddict – A community for tea lovers.
• staleale – A community to trade beer close to its best-before date.
• ping2hq.com - A realtime mobile tracking application.
• rateyourlecturer.com - Meaningful reviews of lecturers.
• janusjobs.com - A community to facilitate job sharing.
• exhort.me - Get out and do something new.
• FogHorn – Android alarm clock with ratings.

The Hackathon was part of the Entrepreneurs Week event being held right now (eweek.org.au). The goal of this event is to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship at universities around Melbourne and New South Wales. It’s organized by the amazing folks over at agentsofchange.org.au – Amir, Kevin, Tim and Michelle.