Photo Credit: Image Credit: Sunil Paul
Last weekend, New York had more to be proud of than just a football team, as Greg Neichin from Cleantech Group pointed out. At the second Cleanweb Hackathon, and the first to be held in New York City, a host of teams made the NYC cleantech community proud during a 30-plus-hour hacking session that ended in presentations to a select panel of judges.
The overall prize went to Econofy and their slogan, "Before you buy, Econofy." The beta website allows consumers to compare appliances by their energy efficiency ratings. "By buying the most energy-efficient products," says their description, "you can save big in the long run." Other apps made use of the new "Green Button" program recently launched by the White House, open data from the city of New York, and data from event sponsor Tendril's API. (We recently named Tendril one of the top ten "Vendors to Watch" in the Smart Grid market.)
The event was inspired by Hackathon co-founder, Sunil Paul of Spring Ventures, and his idea of Cleanweb, which according to Paul's website is a category of clean technology that leverages the capability of the internet, social media, and mobile technologies to address resource constraints. He sees it as the next stage of development for cleantech. Tech and VC writers have predicted this trend of "tech-enabled services," and some have seen it as an alternative to an unreliable cleantech market.
The event was supported and hosted by a number of New York City-based technology and green organizations, including NYC ACRE, NYU Poly, Pure Energy Partners, Dynamo, EnergyScoreCards, Civvic, NYCEDC and Raw Revolution.
Looking for other NYC-based cleantech events? Don't miss the Clean Energy Connections series which we livestream on Greentech Media monthly. The next event, "No Money No Problems? Financing Cleantech in the Post-ARRA Era," takes place at WNYC on Tuesday Jan. 31 at 7:00 p.m. You can purchase tickets here.