Sponsors are a huge part of Hackagong. Without the generous contributions from our sponsors, we wouldn’t be running this awesome Hackathon! This is Sponsor Watch, where we take a quick look at one of our sponsors.

Company: Rackspace
Company Website: http://www.rackspace.com/en-au
Location: Rackspace Australia & New Zealand
Level 1, 37 Pitt Street
Sydney NSW 2000
Australia
Number of Employees: 6,000

What does your company do?

Rackspace (NYSE: RAX), the #1 managed cloud company, helps businesses tap the power of cloud computing without the challenge and expense of managing complex IT infrastructures and application platforms on their own. Rackspace engineers deliver specialised expertise on top of leading technologies developed by OpenStack, Microsoft, VMware and others, through a results-obsessed service known as Fanatical Support®. The company has more than 300,000 customers worldwide, including two-thirds of the FORTUNE 100. Rackspace was named a leader in the 2015 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud-Enabled Managed Hosting, and has been honored as one of Fortune’s Best Companies to Work For in six of the past eight years. For more information, visit www.rackspace.com/en-au.

How did your company first get started? What’s the origin story?

What began in 1998 as the idea of three Trinity University classmates has now become a global company with more than 300,000 customers in over 120 countries and $1.9 billion in annual revenue. While our headquarters remain in San Antonio, we have over 5,900 Rackers on four continents who spend their days innovating, creating, and supporting the foundation of our business—you.

We now host more than 69% of the Fortune 100 and 62% of the companies who advertise during the Super Bowl. Many of the apps and websites you use every day run on our managed cloud. We deliver winning outcomes for you and your business.

Why did you sponsor Hackagong 2015?

At Rackspace, we remember where we’re coming from, and not long ago in 1998, we were a startup business too. As a result, we have create the Startup Programme to give back to the community and provide Fanatical Support® at that critical stage of your business.

Has your company ever held internal hackathons?

Yes

What is the most awesome thing or project your company has done?

Founded OpenStack with NASA in 2010

What’s an internal/industry problem your company would like to solve?

– Scaling up (and down) to flex with demand
– Keeping pace with competitors and customer needs with rapid, iterative development and continuous integration
– Taking advantage of cutting edge technologies, without cutting edge risk
– Continuously building expertise in a rapidly changing landscape

What are you most looking forward to at Hackagong 2015?

Seeing amazing ideas come to life.

Are you currently hiring and if so, what type of person are you looking for?

Inside Sales Representative
https://www.linkedin.com/jobs?viewJob=&jobId=70766606

Senior Full Stack Developer – Security Practice Area
https://www.linkedin.com/jobs?viewJob=&jobId=62955744

Technical Consultant
https://www.linkedin.com/jobs?viewJob=&jobId=71819178

Linux Automation Engineer (DevOps)
https://www.linkedin.com/jobs?viewJob=&jobId=70765755

AWS Operations Engineer
https://www.linkedin.com/jobs?viewJob=&jobId=69318329

What trending technology are you most excited for over the next 5 years?

Cloud hosting
Big Data
Internet of Things
Artificial intelligence

Hackagong and WITS thanks Rackspace for supporting our event! Without them Hackagong would not be possible.