Guest post: 2011 hackNY Fellow Abe Stanway on Hacker League

This post is written by 2011 hackNY Fellow Abe Stanway of RutgersThe hackathon is not a new concept, but around NYC, it's turning into a movement. These days, you can go to a different hackathon just about every weekend and build for the sake of building. Granted, many of the apps that get built at these hackathons are trivial, and they don't solve "real" problems, but I think that's missing the point. The developers who go to hackathons build more than just weekend hacks - they build community.The dense community of developers and entrepreneurs has turned Silicon Valley into the hub of innovation that it is. But I see no reason why a strong developer community, and the innovation that comes with it, needs to be tied to a small strip of land in Southern California. Isn't the point of the Internet to connect people who otherwise wouldn't?This is why we built Hacker League. We want to see more and more hackathons popping up. More and more mini-Valleys. The more hackathons there are, the more united the developer community will be, and a united developer community bodes well for the future of technology.To that end, Hacker League is a tool for hackathon organizers. We want to make it easy for anyone thinking about throwing a hackathon to get up and do it. We provide everything you need to organize a fantastic hackathon: a wiki, a blog, a voting platform, a hack submission system, and hacker registration.Hacker League is also for hackers. It's a place to show off the great stuff you've built. A place to meet other skilled developers and get inspired. Each hacker on Hacker League gets a profile that lists his/her skills, interests, and past hacks. Each hack, in turn, has a page that lists who built it, what it's built on, a screenshot, and of course, a link to the actual hack.With Hacker League, we hope to give strength to the hackathon movement in New York, across America, and abroad. We're still in beta, but we're actively doing test runs. We ran the hackNY hackathon on October 1st, and it went over really well. If you're planning on throwing a hackathon soon, we want to work with you to make your hackathon the best it can possibly be. Please don't hesitate to reach out and email us at thehackerleague@gmail.com.