This section provides numerous educational resources regarding the technologies that likely will be encountered during this hackathon.
Participants will be developing applications that take advantage of existing banking services, and possibly other services, to creatively solve problems and provide a unique user experience.
Today, the main technology for leveraging external features is through application programming interfaces, or APIs. An API is a set of functions within one computer program that are externally exposed so that a different application can access those functions and leverage those capabilities to enhance itself.
When we visit a retail web site, for example, the site may provide us with a list of stores that are close to our location. In this case, the site is calling an external location API to obtain geographical information. It may call an internal API to check the store inventory. Another API may be used for processing our payment. And yet another API to get shipping and tracking information.
APIs are extremely useful, providing access to features, data or other services. All of the banking services provided by U.S. Bank for this hackathon are accessible through APIs.