TADHack is the only global meeting place for developers who want to learn, share, code and create across the breath of telecom tools and technologies. All telecom technologies and platforms are presented at TADHack, its a broad and open event with the focus on how all developers regardless of telecoms knowledge can use telecom technologies. Hacks can focus on humanitarian problems, regaining our privacy, really solving any problem that interests or excites the developer / team.  My TADHack interview sets out what we’re trying to achieve with TADHack and TADSummit.

We kicked off the event in Madrid with two keynotes from Mark Shuttleworth and James Tagg; the Asian satellites had really started given the time differences. To minimize risk we streamed HD video from Madrid, for TADHack 2015 we’ll look to broadcast from multiple satellites to run keynotes across the world, and better connect all TADHack locations. We wrapped up the morning in Madrid with a panel session discussion on how “Telecom Application Development is changing the world as we know it!” and from the video playlists below you can see this is not an exaggeration. In the afternoon we broke into streams focused on the sponsors’ technologies, the presentations from the keynotes and sponsors are available here.

Just a few numbers on the event:

• Global registrations: close to 700
• On the day global attendance: close to 500
• Hacks Generated: 60+
• Satellites: 5 (Sri Lanka, Philippines, Malaysia, Pune India, Chicago USA, and your own home).
• Simultaneous video streams of the live viewed: 126

Back in Nov 2013 the idea of TADHack germinated, and since then its grown beyond the expectations of everyone involved. We were thinking perhaps 150 people in the end close to 700 registrations and 500 attendees on the day with over 60. We thought perhaps 1 or 2 satellites, we drew the line at 5, we had many more requests but not the bandwidth to integrate them. We’ve learned much, and will make TADHack 2015 bigger and better for everyone involved.

The web has won, telecoms needs to stop pretending it has special requirements and get with the program, copy the web.  That is what we’re doing with TADHack and TADSummit. We need a telecom application developer ecosystem, as discussed in the TAD Manifesto, not an operator specific program or the messed-up GSMA program with its technology and vendor biases. Telco competitive advantage comes from understanding your local market and delivering compelling customer value with ecosystem and technology partners. We need to rally behind what’s started at TADHack and deliver new value to customers, else become ISPs, as stated by James Body of the leading global MVNO Truphone.

Here are all the YouTube playlists:

• Winners playlist (also briefly reviewed in these weblogs of winners: Satellites, Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3)
• Madrid playlist
• Sri Lanka playlist
• Philippines playlist
• Chicago playlist
• Malaysia playlist
• Pune India playlist
• Remote playlist
• Friday 6th morning playlist
• Interviews playlist

On Twitter you can see buzz from the events , @TADHack, @TADHackKL2014, @TADHackSL, @TADHackPH, TADHack Pune and TADHack Chicago. In Sri Lanka they had karaoke, traditional dancers, and drummers to keep the energy high in their 24 hour hackathon. We purposefully made the format of TADHack open, and as you can see in the playlist above we have a diversity of winners include several winning student teams.

A theme in some of the hacks was WebRTC, it was like a gateway technology. A hack would start with WebRTC as its a popular and an accessible technology, then from there developers would explore other telecom APIs and capabilities that can reach any of the 6B people connected by a phone. The diversity at TADHack is reflected in many ways; across the solutions to the problems faced in the different markets, the ages of the developers involved, the composition of the teams, the way the hack was created etc.  Check out this great review of TADHack Sri Lanka.

The diversity of the teams I think is an important point, those that included user experience and product people were more likely to win. This is a key point, technology is amazing, but of limited value without the people who can translate it into a compelling proposition with compelling experiences. It was inspiring to see more than software people involved. If you want to be involved in TADHack  2015 please contact us to sponsor or to be kept up to date on the email list. TADHack will be running around the world and on the internet in early June 2015.

TADSummit runs on the 12/13 November in Istanbul, the 2014 website will be up and running soon. While TADHack focuses on developers and the technology / ecosystem providers. TADSummit is focused on operators and technology / ecosystem providers across the following topics:

• The challenges of go-to-market, commercialization, and much more that the leading telcos are trying to solve;
• Deep dive Telco case studies on service innovation;
• Meet TADHack winners and Telecom Application Developer celebrities;
• Workshops focused on sharing go-to-market, commercialization experiences, and best practices; and
• The best and the brightest coming together to help build the telecom application developer ecosystem and successfully commercialize the service innovation pipeline.

With TADHack and TADSummit we’re trying to build an essential component of the future Telecoms industry from the grassroots, the telecom application developer ecosystem. We need the rest of the industry to join us in making this happen.