It is something people would see in the movie The Matrix, but without the slow motion gunfights and raw action scenes. On a computer screen multi-colored wording on a black backdrop appears like gibberish to the average computer user, but coding is 17-year-old Stephen Ou’s specialty.

“Got code?” became the slogan of Saturday’s Alameda County App Challenge, which brought in roughly 150 contestants from all over the county vying for the chance to win $3,000.

“We are merging the government with people who are pretty astute in being able to use their computer to help us create apps for our government,” said Keith Carson, president of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors.  “So I’m hoping that some of these computer wizards will come up with some new ways in which we can access government. That is what this is all about.”

Berkeley High School, located in the heart of Carson’s district, hosted the Hackathon to encourage open data sharing through applications using county information found online.

The participants made up roughly 20 teams, four teams smaller than last year, with many of the participants returning from last December’s event.

Green By Me took first place this year, creating an app that helps find green businesses around the area. Evan Evans, returning competitor and member of Green By Me, said his original idea to catalog the different trees in Alameda County did not gain popularity.

“I went up and pitched my idea and nobody cared,” said Evans. “And then Rachel came by and said ‘Hey, I have this other idea,’ so we put our ideas in the rock grinder of our minds and we polished the stones and we came up with something very beautiful, which was Green By Me. Really, what helped me win was having a lot of positive energy.”

Second place prizewinners who received $1,500 were Where To Dump It, which is an app that locates areas to dispose hazardous waste such as batteries, paint and electronic recycling. Home School came in third place collecting $500, designing an app that provides information for first time homebuyers illuminating the cost of living in the area alongside school ratings.

The supervisor accredits the Hackathon to Alameda County Administrator Susan Muranishi, who said she came up with the idea a few years ago.

“It was an idea that I came across listening to some CEO’s talking about offering their facilities for Hackathons and I was curious about it and said ‘why can’t we do that?’” she affirmed. “It was intriguing to me because we were clearly into data sharing, open data, and thought why not do that because we are also committed to community and civic engagement.”

Carson, who stayed for the entire event, reflected on last year’s app challenge that brought about apps like Book It!, Parks and Recreation App and SNAP Map.

“One of the things that came out of the last one, the first one we hosted, was an app that allowed people to find out where all the parks were in Alameda County,” said Carson. “And it is so surprising, because we have tons of parks in Alameda County.”

As the brain behind the 2nd place winning app Alameda County Parks and Recreation Finder in December’s 2012 Alameda County Hackathon, Ou and his group of four Castro Valley High School friends produced a Property Tax Calculator app, which presents home values within the county. The young Internet aficionado now provides basic coding lessons for all ages interested in getting into app making and computer programming.

Unsuccessful this year, Ou expressed he may or may not come back next time, stating he might intern for Alameda County, which would make him ineligible to participate.

“It’s okay, competition is tough,” said Ou smiling with optimism after the winners were announced. His friend, Caleb Kim, a senior at Castro Valley High School, partnered with Ou last Hackathon and now works as an intern with Alameda County.

Ou was not the youngest member participating in the event. Eleven-year-old Liam Foster came to observe and ended up participating. He, along with 29-year-old participant Annie Chang, presented an app.  Also unsuccessful, Foster and Chang’s team received honorable mentions for their ALAMap, which presents local events happening on that day.

“He had a lot of great ideas,” said Chang in regards to her young partner. “We couldn’t find fun ways to use the Alameda County data, such as historic points of interest, but we talked about building social functions, Twitter and Facebook, and he ended up having a lot of great ideas for the mobile app.”

Alameda County hopes to continue this tradition of combing government with technology, but has not set a date for the next event.

“I thought there were a lot of good presenters today, it was hard for them to come up with the winners, and I want to congratulate those who won,” said Carson at the end of the night. “But I also think there are applications that weren’t apart of the winning that will be a part of [the apps in Alameda County] moving forward.”