This happened today: The AngelHack Manila Launch

AngelHack graphic

(April 10 - Metro Manila, Philippines) AngelHack, dubbed as the "world's largest hackathon", today announced the launch of AngelHack Manila.

The global event will be taking place in over 30 cities around the world this May and June, 2013. Cities cover a wide range from Europe, Israel, Russia, India, Asia, Australia, North and South America. All told, this leg of the hackathon intends to cover over 6,000 hackers in over 30 cities from May/June 2013.

Manila joins the ranks of these cities with the announcement of AngelHack Manila. The exact date will be announced but will fall within the May/June 2013 timeframe.

TechCrunch described AngelHack in a recent feature as follows:

AngelHack has always been a little different from your average hackathon — rather than taking place in one spot over one weekend, it has become a global event that takes place in multiple stages. As a result, the projects are usually pretty polished, though not yet at the level of full-fledged startups. Now it’s taking another step in that direction with the launch ofits very own accelerator.

The program will admit 40 teams into a 14-week program – 12 weeks of local mentoring, then two weeks in San Francisco pitch training, investor meetings, and events. In that sense, it follows the broader AngelHack model, where there are local hackathons which feed into a big competition among the finalists in Silicon Valley. In exchange for the mentorship (and tickets to this fall’s TechCrunch Disrupt), AngelHack takes 2 percent equity.

Founder Greg Gopman said that his goal is “to be the largest funnel of seed-stage technical talent into incubators and investors around the world,” and he noted that previous AngelHack winners have joined Y Combinator, AngelPad, MassChallenge, TechStars and 500 Startups, and also raised hundreds of thousands of dollars on AngelList.

AngelHack participants get a chance to win:

  • Trip packages to Silicon Valley (Sept. 2-15, 2013)
  • Acceptance in the AngelHack Accelerator Program
  • Entry into the AngelHack Finals (Sept. 5th)
  • Tickets to TechCrunch Disrupt SF (Sept. 7th-11th)
  • Potential booth at TechCrunch Disrupt SF

Today's AngelHack Manila Launch was held at the JUMP experience center in SM Megamall. AngelHack Manila is organized in partnership with the SMART Developer Network and the Ideaspace Foundation.

Speaking at today's program was Earl Valencia, president of IdeaSpace, Paul Pajo of SMART DevNet, and AngelHack co-founder Greg Gopman giving the local audience the main overview of the AngelHack movement. Today's event was titled "Hacking Your Way to Silicon Valley."

More on this story as it develops.

Nick Frost of AngelHack San Francisco gives us a flavor of AngelHack as he talked about the organization during the 2012 event, in this YouTube clip: