At a boutique hotel in the picturesque beach town of Playa Carrillo, province of Guanacaste, a group of programmers are scratching their heads trying to figure out why none of the major surf report providers have Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), those programmatic gateways that provide access to data for third-party Web applications. The idea is to build a chat bot that can provide Web users with surf forecasts, but it looks like the forecast providers are not keen on giving up their precious oceanographic data.

 

In jest, someone suggests building a content scraper, an unethical tool that would copy surf reports that are already posted online for the purpose of feeding information to the chat bot (they should really be talking to the MIOCIMAR team at the University of Costa Rica for prime oceanographic information, at least in our country). A scraper would be something that a Black Hat, a nefarious information technologist, would build and use; nonetheless, there are no Black Hat projects at the Hacker Paradise retreat in Costa Rica. Casey Rosengren, founder and facilitator of this tropical school for hackers explains:

 

When we say “hacker,” we don’t mean someone who exploits security flaws in computers [such as Black Hat hackers]. We mean someone who builds things quickly, who can put together a project over a weekend and then have it in front of users on Monday morning. While people outside of the programming community still associate the word “hacker” with security, inside the programmer community it has come to mean someone who is credible and who builds interesting things. Our Code of Conduct does not explicitly say that Black Hat projects are not allowed, but our participants are not security hackers, and we are located in Costa Rica, so all participants must follow local laws.

 

Rosengren is referring to Articles 196, 217 and 229 of the Criminal Code in Costa Rica, which prohibit computer intrusions, fraud, sabotage, phishing, and other unlawful activities that constitute cybercrime. Alas, The Costa Rica Star has previously reported on such incidents, but that is not the focus of the Hacker Paradise retreat, where a hackathon might involve developing a room booking system for the retreat on top of Google Spreadsheets, chat bots that deliver surfing forecasts, and eating ceviche.

 

Whereas hackathons often take place in convention halls or data centers, a school for hackers in Costa Rica takes advantage of the natural beauty of our country and the Pura Vida lifestyle. The headquarters of Hacker Paradise is El Sueño Tropical, a boutique hotel located on the edge of the jungle in Playa Carrillo. Participants arrive from all over to get away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life and spend 12 weeks writing code and building things with other passionate individuals. Participants are encouraged to work on open-source code and ‘for-fun’ projects, but they are also allowed to work on commercial projects, such as freelance work or startups. When hackers are not involved in their projects, they are immersed in Tico Time and other activities such as enjoying gallo pinto for breakfast, surfing, kayaking and relaxing with an ice-cold Imperial nearby. Rosengren explained why Costa Rica is ideal for Hacker Paradise:

 

We picked Costa Rica because of the climate and environment. I personally love the country and have traveled here before, and I wanted to organize our retreat in a place where people could enjoy the beach and be immersed in nature. Costa Rica is a beautiful country and thus an ideal spot for time spent abroad. The people on our retreat are people looking to work on side projects or spend time learning. The closest analogy is that we are like a writers’ retreat for programmers. People spend time here away from the hustle and bustle of their daily lives to hone their craft and build things they wouldn’t have time for in their daily lives.

 

Here’s an interesting fact about Hacker Paradise in Costa Rica: As reported by the facilitators, 47 percent of initial applications came from women:

 

[We] wanted to ensure that retreat participants were more diverse than the usual suspects, Caucasian males in their twenties. We reached out to several women-in-tech community organizers who helped steer us in the right direction. From the beginning our copy emphasized an open community and a collaborative learning environment. We chose to avoid industry buzzwords, like “ninja” & “rockstar,” and explicitly discussed pair programming & peer-learning.

 

At Hacker Paradise, some of the participants have already worked on projects with a certain degree of Costa Rica affinity. There’s Cropster, a tech company that helps coffee and cocoa farmers improve crop yields and consistency.  There’s also DeucesCracked, an online poker training site. To learn more about Hacker Paradise, visit their site, read their blog or send them an email.