SOE Software Supports County's Initiative to Promote Technology

Hillsborough County is embarking on a journey to drive the growth of technology and innovation start-ups and small businesses in Tampa Bay, and has launched ‘Hack-a-Thon’, a local event that is part of the county’s economic development innovation Initiative (EDI2), held at the community college’s Brandon Campus.

A hackathon is an event in which computer programmers, designers, project managers and others collaborate intensively on software projects; Tampa-based SOE Software participated in the county’s initiative, creating an application called HomeScout. The company was ably represented by Ryan Connolly, James Rundlett and Ed Seufert.

HomeScout was meant to help prospective homebuyers research the property and surrounding area they are evaluating, helping them to make better buying decisions.

“I’m very pleased that SOE Software fielded a team to participate in this important and innovative event right here in Hillsborough County,” said Marc Fratello, CEO of SOE Software, adding, “I’m very proud of our team members who took the initiative to get involved, donate their time, and develop a great application to help our community.”

The spirit of competition and cooperation was in the air as professionals and students competed in teams to design, develop and launch software applications that would benefit the local community, highlighting in the process the importance of technology and innovation.

Although the ‘Hack-a-thon’ gave technologists access to large, publicly available databases with which to work, the event was directed solely with the intention of encouraging creativity in software development and not destroying.

Event organizers were quick to reassure the community that participants would be able to access only the specified databases but would not have to access restricted, confidential information.

In 2012, SCYTL, a technology company specializing in the development of secure electronic voting and election modernization solutions, acquired SOE Software.