We’ve been to several Startup Weekends, Angel Hacks, 48 Hour Launch events, and other hackathons. On the surface they attract a similar “type” of person: the guy or gal who sits around and codes around the clock eating pizza, drinking beer, and keeping their eyes open with 5 Hour Energy and RedBull. Justin Mendelson, the founder of a new hackathon in Boston called HackFit, is preparing to change that.
In addition to coding and building, HackFit attendees will also have ample time to sleep, a variety of workout classes, healthy foods, and of course sessions for coding developing and company building.
Mendelson has been an entrepreneur, product builder, mentor, and business developer throughout his career. He’s also a runner and an athlete, which is why he founded HackFit, a natural mesh of his two passions.
“I’ve participated in a lot of other startup weekends because of previous ideas that I had for fitness-related startups, and I learned that the best teammates were often the ones who were runners themselves. However, I felt like any time I attended one of those startup events, I’d aged a year when the event was over. I wanted to create an active, healthy startup event system since none currently exist,” Mendelson told bostonmagazine.com.
The inaugural HackFit event will be held in Cambridge, Massachusetts, September 20-22nd. “Like a typical startup event schedule, people will first pitch ideas that pertain to the fitness tech space,” Mendelson says, explaining the weekend schedule. “But instead of people just coming up to you after your pitch and asking to join you, we’ll have a physical exercise ice breaker that will help people meet each other. Then people will form teams and go home for the night to sleep.”
In addition to a schedule that includes ample time for fitness and team building, all of the startups created will be fitness and health related. Like most startup-building hackathons there will be a judging panel on Sunday. Participants will receive prizes from area sponsors including gym memberships.
To find out more about HackFit click here.
One comment
Leave a reply →