Tribe Hackathon aims to enhance park experience

CLEVELAND — Even from the back of the room, the celebratory shouts could be heard. AJ Jimenez nearly knocked off his Indians baseball cap as he unleashed an emphatic fist pump. His teammates, Chad Milburn and Tim Zeller, followed him up to the front to collect their prize.

The rest of the crowd at the Terrace Club at Progressive Field clapped in unison, congratulating the group named “Alrighty Fielders” for their feat on becoming the first winners of the Tribe Hackathon.

“To be the first is unreal,” Milburn said. “We came in and just wanted to be creative. We wanted to do something that was cool. It gave us an opportunity to do something really rich and fun that maybe we can’t do in real life.”

On Saturday, 13 tech-savvy groups presented their applications in front of judges. These apps were centered on a theme: enhancing the fan experience at baseball games.

Traditionally, hackathons occur over a 48-hour period where the participants stay overnight to work on their apps. But given the fact that they were not allowed to stay overnight at the ballpark, the event actually began two weeks before the presentations.

“We also wanted to try to give people some more time,” said Neil Weiss, the Indians’ senior vice president of technology and CIO. “We weren’t sure if we would get enough people that could produce something in 48 hours. We figured we’d try this format this year and maybe go back to the original concept next year.”

The idea for the first annual Tribe Hackathon came about over a lunch several months …

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