MacHack is a conference that in its fifteenth year remains centered around cutting edge software development. The 2002 MacHack conference will take place June 20-22 in Dearborn, Michigan.
This locale, while remote to Silicon Valley, serves a multitude of purposes. First, it is historical as the conference got its start at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor a mere 20 miles from the site of today’s conference. Second, and perhaps most important, it provides the ideal setting for attendees to escape the rigors of the Valley or other areas of high engineer concentration and focus solely on the conference.
Conference sessions occur throughout the conference schedule and cover a wide variety of topics. This year, tracks will include rapid application development, cross platform coding, and marketing for the small software vendor.
Throughout the conference new technologies and development tools are available for hands-on evaluation by attendees. In the past, pre-release versions of MacOS (both classic and OSX), Windows, and NeXTStep/Rhapsody have been available for attendees to evaluate and test their mettle by coding for these new platforms. With the advent of the Internet and networked technologies, numerous net technologies have been available for first hand evaluation. These have included Active-X, Java, PGP and streaming media technologies.
Since the conference’s inception at U of M, fostering developing software engineers has been a key activity at MacHack. Students are able to attend the conference for a greatly reduced rate to encourage their attendance. There are sessions and activities focused on student attendees so that they can develop both a network of industry contacts as well as their engineering prowess. Additionally, veteran engineers routinely spend time with students in informal contact aiding with coding and design at the conference.
The MacHack's lack of orthodoxy extends well beyond its location. The conference begins at midnight on Wednesday with the keynote speaker that extends into the wee hours of Thursday. The entire conference has events scheduled around the clock until the banquet closes out the conference on Saturday night.
MacHack is one of the few conferences that emphasizes code development. Virtually all attendees are involved in writing software during the conference itself. The range of activities in this regard extends from expert assistance with problem personal projects to cutting edge OS enhancements and new tools. This aspect of MacHack allows attendees to utilize each other as resources to hone their coding skills.
The Hack is a main event of the conference from an attendee’s standpoint. The Hack is the annual contest that occurs on the Friday evening of the conference where the attendees are encouraged to publicly unveil the fruits of their labors of the preceding two days. Sponsored by the MacHax Group, the Hack is a public show of the best that the engineers can generate in the limited conference time. Competition is for the coveted Victor A-Trap Award, a legacy of early MacOS APIs.
MacHack is attended by the best and brightest software engineers in the business. Historically a MacOS centered conference, the focus has expanded in recent years to include other platforms including Windows, UNIX and Linux. Attendance is held to 300 professionals and 100 students to maintain the informal feel and maximize interactions between engineers. Other conferences are too large to facilitate the kind of networking and information exchange that MacHack thrives on.
In the past MacHack has relied upon only the entrance fees of attendees to fund the events at the conference. In recent years, this has become more and more difficult as fiscal realities have placed pressure on the ability of the conference to remain solvent. In recent years, sponsors have generously assisted in maintaining the solvency and fiscal stability of the conference. In the past, sponsorship unfortunately has taken the form of open ended donations to the conference which have offered little measurable return to the sponsor.
The entire sponsorship model has been revamped to provide direct value to the sponsor in terms of exposure and maximize the benefits of the sponsorship dollar to the conference itself. We understand that we have a responsibility to the sponsor to see that the dollars provided are of maximum benefit to the sponsor so that a long term and mutually beneficial relationship can be fostered. This year defines a new opportunity in this regard, both for sponsor and attendee value.
Any vendor of services or products valuable to software engineers should consider sponsoring MacHack. Any distributor of commercial software or shareware seeking new talent should consider sponsoring MacHack. Any large employer of software engineers seeking potential new talent should consider sponsoring MacHack.
Gone this year are the open ended and vague sponsorships of previous years. This year, each sponsor will know how what their dollars are funding and what benefit they receive for their sponsorship. This year, we are seeking sponsorship to underwrite specific aspects of the conference that are high profile and easily marked so that attendees are aware of the sponsors providing the particular feature.
A number of aspects of the conference are available for underwriting:
Pizza-Wednesday
Sandwiches-Thursday
Sandwiches-Friday
Ice Cream-Saturday
Conference Rooms:
Main Hall (2 Rooms)
Accessory Hall
Board Room
Snack Room
Cokes/Juice
Coffee
Internet Connection
Programs
CD-Roms
T-Shirts
Coffee Mugs
All of these items provide a high profile way for sponsors to reach the engineering attendees of MacHack. For example, sponsorship of one of the conference rooms will result in a renaming of the room after the individual sponsor, so that instead of the conference center’s label of Florence or Venice, the room will carry the sponsor’s corporate or product moniker. The rooms will also have space for the hanging of a banner provided by the sponsor that will be visible throughout the conference.
Sponsorship of other aspects of the conference will result in similar consideration. For instance, he coffee urns can be labeled with the sponsors name and corporate message, the food can be served under an easel based sign and the CD-ROM facings can credit the sponsor.
Additionally, all sponsors of this caliber will receive rotating banner ads at the MacHack website. The website will be heavily promoted as our marketing push for the conference begins.
All sponsors will have the opportunity to provide information (i.e.. fliers, booklets, demo CDs, etc.) that will be placed in the packages that each attendee will receive at registration. We strongly encourage sponsors to take advantage of this opportunity as it maximizes the exposure that the sponsor receives.
MacHack is always in need of additional sponsorship. Often this comes in the form of loaner hardware for the conference network or machine room, or items to be given out as door prizes or contest prizes. Product is always welcome in this regard. Even this most basic level of sponsorship will receive recognition on the sponsorship page at the MacHack website and in the conference Program. For further information on how to provide this or any level of sponsorship contact me, Warren Magnus (mailto:sponsorship@machack.com). MacHack is a registered trademark of Expotech, Inc. MacHack is not affiliated with The MacHax Group. Macintosh is a registered trademark of Apple Computer, Inc. Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft, Inc.