This Hackathon Will Pit The East Coast Vs. Silicon Valley

We stopped by the first AngelHack in December (click through for photos). Greg Gopman, the hackathon's creator, always had bigger plans for it. 

The next hackathon is set to happen the first weekend in March, and it will happen in two locations at once: San Francisco and Cambridge, MA.

New Yorkers don't want to miss out, so there will be three full buses sending hackers from General Assembly up to the Cambridge Innovation Center.

"When I first moved to the valley, it was difficult for me to find the right people to help me build a startup, get my ideas validated, and get funding. I started AngelHack as a way to hack that whole process. We bring founders and investors together to showcase their skills and we make it really fun," Gopman said.

The upcoming hackathon is different than other ones out there because it's the only one where you can come in with an idea and leave three days later with funding. In San Francisco, former Mashable writer Ben Parr is hosting and Naval Ravikant of AngelList is judging.

Gopman expects 700 entrepreneurs will compete for $75,000 in prizes. There's a lot of interest from students from Stanford, Harvard, MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania. However, only the top ten teams in each participating city will battle for the prizes through a live Webcast. The top prize will be a ticket to China on Dave McClure's Geeks on a Plane.

It is beginning to look like a geeky version of American Idol, so hopefully some good ideas will come out of it.

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