An eclectic mix of pizzas, computers, beer, cake, 3D printers and the close mingling of more than 100 young and seasoned developers converged at the West Chester innovation incubator Walnut St. Labs for the launch of a their “no-code hackathon.”

In partnership with global information technology leader Unisys Corp., the energizing evening ignited the four-week #ProtoComp2015, a frenzied race amongst 17 teams of pioneers within and beyond the user interface and user experience design field to create a working security software prototype and claim the $4,000 grand prize.

“Walnut St. Labs was tasked with the unique opportunity to convey a piece of highly technical internet security software to a group with varying levels of technical skill in a party setting,” Ben Bock wrote in his coverage of the launch night.

It’s that diverse, outside-the-box collaboration that the competition hopes will spark innovation.

The contest will provide eight crash courses in aspects of innovation like rapid prototyping, agile development, and creativity to product execution and thinking security.

WSL and Unisys also dream of the day that such creative and unorthodox inventiveness finds its way into mainstream educational institutions.

“Very few schools are aware of the disparate gap that lies amid a hungry tech job market and a dearth of available and qualified technologists, much less ambitious enough to bridge that gap. It was refreshing to see that so many of our contestants were young and, to some capacity, technologically adept. … Our hope is that the reverberations of such novel concepts will be heard by more conventional institutions who focus on fact recall.”

Watch the video below to learn more about the innovation experiment happening right here in Chester County.