Year: 2013

British Airways to hold a hackathon on a plane above the Atlantic ocean

Isn’t that awesome?

As plane journeys are starting to get increasingly more entertaining with Wi-Fi onboard, Harlem Shakes, and cellphone service, British Airways is taking things a step further. On a transatlantic flight from San Francisco to London, the airline plans to invite 100 innovators to an 11-hour “UnGrounded” hackathon. A number of high-profile founders, CEOs, and venture capitalists will all participate, with the aim of collaborating to create some solutions to global problems.

The group will be tasked with presenting their findings at the DNA Summit workshop after they land in London. UnGrounded is part of a larger push by British Airways to participate in the start-up community. The airline joined up with RocketSpace recently, a startup accelerator based in San Francisco, to gain access to startups and RocketSpace founder Duncan Logan will be onboard. The plane departs on June 12th, with no tablet use during takeoff of course, and we’ll be watching closely to see what 11 hours in the skies above the Atlantic ocean brings to the table.