Santa Clara, located in the heart of the Silicon Valley (and headquarters for companies such as Intel, Oracle, McAfee and Nvidia), was the second stop of the BlackBerry® 10 Jam World Tour in the US.

It was another sold-out event, bringing together passionate and curious developers looking for the opportunities BlackBerry 10 holds. Attendees came from all over the valley including San Francisco, Fremont, San Jose, San Bruno, San Mateo, Foster City and Palo Alto. There was also a group of developers who drove all the way up from Los Angeles to experience a day of tracks in Web, Native and Enterprise development.

The day started with an energetic keynote with the same crew who presented the news and the demos in Austin, plus Ronjon Nag, Vice President, BlackBerry App World™ and Intelligent Systems at Research In Motion® (RIM®). The activities then began with the myths around developing for the BlackBerry platform, plus discussion of the revolutionary user experience of BlackBerry 10 and the SDKs available for developers (HTML5, C/C++, Cascades, Adobe® AIR® and Android™). It is very clear that BlackBerry cares and wants to give developers choice like no other platform. Developers can see it; as described by one reporter from CNET, who was conducting interviews outside of the hotel:

They spoke of RIM’s outreach team taking time to actually address their woes. “They’re developing the whole operating system based on our needs with our input,” one developer, Matt Lewandowsky, told me. “[BlackBerry 10] could be the first mobile operating system that’s truly developer-friendly. 

During lunch, ten teams pitched their apps and ideas to the whole audience. The apps included a nautical mapping app that helps sailors with charts (using location, gyroscope, etc), a drumming app with great sound and performance, a translator app which teaches Japanese writing, an activity app that encourages teens to be socially responsible, a hospital location app, and more. The winner for the day was a chess app for the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet with very open rules (or no rules at all), but what was unique about this app was that it has been developed by two boys ages 10 and 14. Congrats kids! This shows that developing for BlackBerry is not complicated. All the documentation and samples available on http://developer.blackberry.com are there to support beginners and experienced developers alike.

After the tracks were over, developers got together for two hours to enjoy food and drinks and discuss the possibilities presented during the day. One of our San Francisco BlackBerry developer groups organized an event in the hotel following the BlackBerry 10 Jam and some developers stayed longer to participate.

In short, BlackBerry 10 Jam in Santa Clara was epic and full of positive energy.

Some interesting tweets:

I don’t care, I’m excited about this > “Skype Attends BlackBerry 10 Jam In California” blackberryos.com/content/skype-… #teamBlackBerry #BB10Jam

— JT Teran (@AgentBlackBerry) June 7, 2012

@demianborba Epic presentation skills today at #BB10Jam. Your talk on stage about people who take action and #BB10 vision was so true!

— Michael K. (@MKRK) June 8, 2012

Very impressed with #BB10 & it’s capabilities; I haven’t been this excited about BB since the first trackball was introduced! #BB10Jam

— Isaac Naor (@IsaacNaor) June 7, 2012

At #bb10jam , takeaway so far is that RIM is listening to devs and responding. A very good sign for bb10

— tterb (@tterb) June 7, 2012

Next stops are Toronto and New York, also sold-out events. Let’s rock and roll this!

The Research In Motion® (RIM®) Developer Relations team recently hosted a BBM™ Hackathon event in NYC. Developers were invited to apply for a chance to participate in the event, getting one-on-one time with BlackBerry® platform experts and network with other developers while working on integrating social elements into apps using the BlackBerry® Messenger (BBM) APIs.

Attendees told us that they found the direct contact with our social platform experts to be invaluable – and we liked hearing that so much that we’ve decided to host more of these hackathon events across the globe in the coming weeks.

The first of these events happened yesterday in our company hometown of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, with the second event happening today, September 29th. Following this, we’ll be hosting BBM Apps Hackathons in Toronto, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Jakarta, Amsterdam, London and more. Here are the scheduled dates:

Updated Dates!

• Toronto: October 6th and 7th
• Chicago: October 10th and 11th
• San Francisco: October 16th and 17th (just in time for BlackBerry DevCon Americas 2011!)
• Boston: November 3rd and 4th
• Jakarta: November 14th and 15th
• Bangkok: November 17th and 18th
• Amsterdam: November 24th and 25th (updated)
• London, England: November 28th and 29th (updated)

To enter for your chance to attend one of the BBM Apps Hackathon events, follow this simple process to apply: Visit the site bbmappshackathon.com and fill out an application, outlining among other things (i) why you feel social platform integration adds value to mobile applications; and (ii) give an example of previous mobile apps you have developed.

Developers who are selected to attend a BBM Apps Hackathon event will also receive a BlackBerry gift bag, which includes a BlackBerry® 7 OS device. In addition, those selected to attend the Toronto, Chicago and San Francisco Hackathon events will also receive a pass to attend BlackBerry DevCon Americas 2011 and three night accommodation at the San Francisco Marriott Marquis for the duration of the conference.

We definitely recommend that developers of any level apply to attend these collaborative events. The BlackBerry Social Platform gives developers a way to tie existing apps to BBM, or to build social apps from the ground up. One of the benefits to these social aspects is the added viral buzz that an app can gain from integrating with BBM. At these hackathons, developers will discover valuable strategies that will help them add social aspects to their apps.

Would you be interested in this type of event? Let us know which hackathons you’ll be applying to attend!