Utility Data Hackathon - this Thursday!
I’m hosting a hackathon with my friends at Bayou this Thursday starting at 9:30am. We’ll be playing around with utility data and we’ll see what we can build in a day!
Demos will be held the following day (12/15) from 10-11am. You can also sign up to watch those.
We’ll have a mix of judges from fellow investors—Yin Lu from MCJ and Shawn Xu from Lowercarbon to active product builders and founders — Dhanur Grandhi (ex-Span, Mosaic, Sunrun), Dasha Cherepennikova (CEO, Line.build), and Ross Gruber (CTO, Glow Energy).
Details here:
Bayou and Stepchange are hosting a 1 day hackathon to provide developers with early access to its instant utility data API ahead of Bayou's public product launch in January 2024.
This is your chance to explore an API that answers questions like
How much gas has our house used in the last year?
How has my electricity usage fluctuated?
How much do I spend in different periods
Can I hook this up to visualize this in my house?
What can we understand about energy usage when mashed up with real estate data or weather data?
What are the opportunities for reducing my energy cost and carbon emissions?
We'll provide you with early access to an instant utility data API. The API gives access to household or business utility data (bill PDFs, 15 min interval data, and account info) upon authentication.
This hackathon is for all–whether you’re just exploring the idea of working in climate to energy veterans. Come with an idea or just some energy and we’ll help you get paired up with a team to get building!
If you want to skip the hacking and just see what everyone builds you can sign up for just the demos here (Friday 10-11am PT).
Who should attend?
Software engineers or simarly minded technical folk interested in climate change and how they can help
Idea to early stage founders and innovators looking to rapidly prototype an idea they're exploring
Students and job seekers looking for an opportunity to build out their portfolio of work
Anyone who loves hackathons, data and is interested in trying out new developer tools.
Idea kindling 💡🪵🔥
It is impossible to effectively sell clean energy solutions without the utility data of each customer because the data represents the source of truth for customer energy cost and usage. This makes utility data a foundational building block for the deployment of clean energy. While there are endless opportunities unlocked by instant utility data access, here's a Google doc with some ideas! Also we've collected a few lists for additional inspiration:
Guide to Software in Climate Tech by Ben Shwab Eidelson and Nathan Eidelson
Proposal: A founder-focused climate tech taxonomy by Dave Rusenko's
Schedule (all times US Pacific)
Thursday (12/14)
9:30 - 10 AM: Kickoff
10 - 11 AM: Idea formation and brainstorming with mentors
2 - 3 PM: Check in with mentors
Friday (12/15)
10 - 11 AM: Demos and judging
Support and logistics
The hackathon will be held virtually on Zoom.
Direct access to the Bayou team for support and idea brainstorming will be available in Zoom breakout rooms and Slack. Support hours (US Pacific):
Thursday (12/14)
11 AM - 1 PM
2 PM - 6 PM
Friday (12/15)
8 - 9:30 AM
Product access and test utility accounts will be provided at no cost.
Mentors and judges
Mentors will be available for help during scheduled sessions
The hackathon will conclude with demos judged by a panel of builders and investors working in the early stage clean energy startup world.