Barrick Gold Corporation presents innovation hackathon in Nevada

A premier opportunity for the Nevada innovation and tech community to build skills, scale ventures and engage with great talent has been unveiled by one of the biggest mining companies.

Barick Gold Corporation has aligned with Cisco, Switch and Unearthed Solutions to present Battleborn, the first global mining hackathon to be hosted in the state of Nevada.

Battleborn will see the infusion of the resource industry with bold ideas and exponential technologies from a wide number of global start-ups through a series of boot-camps, hackathons and workshops.

“Barrick is excited to host the state’s first global mining hackathon in Las Vegas,” said Michael Brown, President, Barrick USA. “We are at the forefront of transforming traditional mining with digital technologies, and we look forward to bringing our technology partners to Las Vegas to work with talented innovators and generate fresh ideas for our industry.”

BattleBorn includes a series of boot camps, a 54-hour hackathon, and a startup exchange, that will bring together competitors, observers, industry leaders, and startups.

Startups taking part in the 54-hour hackathon will work through a high intensity programming competition to solve innovation challenges in the global mining industry.

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Then, a panel of judges will evaluate the applicability to the “real-world” industry. The winning participants will receive a $20,000 prize as well as access to Silicon Foundry, an innovation platform that will connect the wining team with its Silicon Valley network and startup best practices.

“Globally, Unearthed is driving a mission for the resources sector – to innovate the way it operates and introduce new technologies with the ability to improve current practices. The hackathon events we’ve produced with Barrick continue this mission,” said Zane Prickett, Director, Unearthed.

The ultimate goal of BattleBorn is to have a “distinctive impact on Nevada’s growing technology and innovation community”. Individuals can get involved by competing in a hackathon, exhibiting a startup, learning about developments in the resource sector or networking with industry leaders.

All events will take place from March 3 – 12 at Rob Roy’s Innevation Center, powered by Switch, located at 6795 S Edmond Street, 3rd Floor, Las Vegas, NV 89118.

For more information about the BattleBorn series of events, including participant registration and ticket purchase, visit www.battleborn.tech.