HackVAN was a successful hackathon event held in Vancouver, BC, bringing together developers, designers, and creatives from across Canada for an 8-hour coding challenge. Twilio was one of the supporting platform companies, along with Microsoft, Yellow Pages, Freshbooks, PhoneGap, and others. The event highlighted the importance of hackathons in validating technology platforms and fostering creativity, drive, and imagination among developers. Two notable projects showcased at HackVAN were Angry Mum, a Rails-based app that uses humor to encourage users to answer math questions, and Hardware is the New Black, which demonstrated the potential of Arduino technology for innovation and experimentation. The event reinforced Twilio's support for hackathons as a way to validate its platform's power and ease of use.