The fifth annual Steel City Codefest, a week-long event, will kick off from 5-7 p.m. on Friday, March 31 at Alloy 26, 100 C. Commons, during the City of Pittsburgh’s Inclusive Innovation Week.
The event will conclude on Friday, April 7 from 4-7 p.m. at the Ace Hotel, 120 Whitfield St. The event will include celebrating inclusive tech advancements, guest speakers, and awards.
Registration is currently open and there is a $10 admission fee that includes the kickoff event, food during work nights, and a t-shirt. Due to space constraints, participation is limited to the first 100 people. Each team member must register for a ticket and can do so by clicking here.
Codefest is unlike most hackathons. This particular one focuses on building viable solutions for the community here in Pittsburgh and is unique to providing funding opportunities post event for taking the apps from prototypes to the streets. Codefest has had more than 350 participants with each team creating apps based upon individually sourced challenges from the nonprofit, public, and social good sector. To date, $173,000 has been raised, through sponsorships and foundation grants helping to pay for the execution of the events and the build out of nine software applications.
Past years grantees include Involvemint, Homewood Children’s Village, the Children’s Museum, Planned Parenthood of Western PA, Pgh.st, 412 Food Rescue, The Salvation Army, Neighborhood Legal Services, and Rebuilding Together.
Codefest is coordinated by Sara Innamorato, owner of Innamo Co. and currently contracted through the Urban Redevelopment Authority. Planning partners include the URA, The Forbes Fund, City of Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Center for Social and Urban Research, University Library System-University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, MAYA Design, Code for Pittsburgh and Work Hard Pittsburgh. Allies and sponsors include American Eagle Outfitters, Bakery Square, BNY Mellon Foundation of Southwestern Pennsylvania, the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, Five Star Development, Google, Innovation Works, NetApp, PNC, ShowClix, Wall-to-Wall Studios, and UPMC Enterprises.
