We were really pleased to be asked by our old friend Dom 'The Hodge' Hodgson to sponsor the second  Leeds Hack.   Running on 6-7 August at the swish Mint Hotel in the city centre, this 24 hour hackathon brought together a huge range of developers from near and far for what was the largest independent hack day in the UK outside of London.  But as well as providing a supply of nti Nibbles ("for when your hack is on the crisp of completion....") we wanted to give the hackers a taste of the kind of things that we do at nti Leeds so we teamed up with iPhone trainer, Dave Verwer, who delivers the nti Leeds iPhone apps development course, to run a taster session  before the main event got underway.

Hack Events are competitive events, where teams compete to develop an application for data provided by a sponsoring organisation. The organisation gets the benefit of what could be called an 'innovation boost' - highly talented developers building apps with your data, and bringing that elusive external perspective to your business.   The participants do it for fun; for the competitive challenge; team working and much more.  Dom puts all of his experience of hack events worldwide, as well as his own unique approach,  into running Leeds Hack, so its right up there with the best.

With the Hack due to kick off at 12:00  this meant an early start for the taster workshop. This didn't deter folks though, as the session was fully booked.  The way this 'taster' session runs is a short introductory talk,  followed by working on an app, Blue-Peter stylee, where some elements are in place. Working on their own or in small groups, with Dave on hand to offer advice, the attendees set about producing the simple iPhone app.  Several of the attendees expressed an interest in our iPhone and iPad Apps Development course so we hope to see some of the attendees at Old Broadcasting House soon.

After the talk was over we spent a couple of hours mingling with the hackers over brunch. The Hack day attracts a  broad mix of people - including at least one family out for the day. There was an air of  excitement about what the next 24 hours had in store as the hackers divided themselves into their teams and set up for the day and night ahead.  There's also an element of surprise - you never know what Dom has up his sleeve.

We got chatting to quite a few of the hackers and it was great to see so many familiar faces, including several of the members of our coworking space at Old Broadcasting House, and a number of Leeds Met graduates.  It would have been lovely to stay a little bit longer, not least to see the outcome of the Just-Eat challenge (40 takeaway drivers arriving at the Mint at exactly the same time; what could possibly go wrong?), but as the hacking was getting underway we thought it was probably time to leave them to it. You can see what people built on the Leeds hack website.

The second Leeds Hack proved to be yet another great Hodgetatsic event, flying the flag for the digital scene in Leeds.  The fact that such a large event could be offered free of charge for participants, whilst running so professionally and with an impressive supporting infrastructure, is a fantastic achievement and credit has to go to The Hodge and all of the Leeds Hack team for their efforts.  It was great to be involved, and we're already looking forward to hosting Leeds Culture Hack here at Old Broadcasting House 12^th - 13th November. More details on that soon. And keep an eye out for Leeds Digital Festival events throughout