As some of you may already know, we at VR Today have recently decided to partner up with a hackathon-based startup and a list of different VR-based publications to help bring you the latest developments on what looks to become the largest WebVR hackathon in recorded history, with a winning sum of €30,000 as well as a slot in a 6-month VR accelerator, VRBASE, in Amsterdam

The company owning this event, and the driving force leading all of this is VirtuLeap – A recent 2016 startup, with a vision of creating a ripple-effect of WebVR-based content throughout the creative and VR community in general.

The premise of the hackathon is fairly simple. For the duration of the competition, each participating team gets to utilize every resource at their disposal to create a groundbreaking WebVR experience.

There’s no grand and detailed requirements, and the competition is fairly loose, but quality and practicality trumps all. The work built out on this project won’t be stored on any external Virtuleap-based domains or data warehouses, so contributors should go ahead and utilize GitHub or similar repositories, and provide a link.

Why Hackathons Matter

Hackathons are awesome. Not only do they establish some remarkable results when done right, but they also help us grow as teams, and they sure do include everyone. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t need to know how to write in complicated programming languages to be part of a hackathon team in the 21st century. If you have a good idea brewing, but don’t know how to code, yet happen to be a graphic designer – you can join in as an artist. If you have no skills in computer graphics or development whatsoever, you can facilitate the process as a project coordinator. There’s plenty of ways to join in, and that’s exactly what hackathons are about. Getting your hands dirty, working together and creating something great. Doing so with VR, with a grand prize of €30,000 and a trip to Amsterdam lying in wait, we see no reason not to participate!

Moving the Needle

While we’re celebrating hackathons as a concept, let’s not forget how this particular event helps grow our industry. Bringing Virtual Reality out of the individual application and unto the web is a massive step forward for the advancement of this thing we do. Why? Because up until now, the quality and overall experience of the current landscape of VR has been very much dependent of which device you have been using, and the horsepower of the hardware running it. WebVR makes all of this device-agnostic and open to everyone.

“We’re taking the concept of a hackathon and exploding it in scale and scope that transcends physicality, geography, and hopefully also any barriers of what we think is possible.” – Team VirtuLeap

I want to get started – What should I do?

If you feel like participating in the event (something which we’ll strongly recommend you to), there are some great guidelines made available for you on the competition section of Virtuleap’s website. Make sure to read them through carefully. The requirements are fairly easily laid out, and you should be fully filled in within a few minutes of reading.

Important Note: Teams that choose to participate should prioritize to hustle and submit their concepts as soon as possible so that they can get as many upvotes as they can up to the Feb 1st deadline.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on the contest and will keep you updated as we move closer towards the deadline. If you want to learn more about Virtuleap, you can follow their work on Twitter, see their latest activity on Facebook and of course – find more here on the site.