The BioCalifornia Initiative met on July 20th in Palo Alto to hear startup experiences in challenge and hackathon environments.

Among the contrasting perspectives, life science companies with long timelines would seemingly be a poor fit for a challenge of just a few days or weeks. Instead, two entrepreneurs gave in-depth perspectives on their experiences in short-format challenges and the many ways those programs helped their companies evolve.

Omar Shaker provided his take on challenges following his experience building Share4Care for a hackathon in the Health 2.0 series.

Molly Morse, founder and CEO of Mango Materials, told of her experience in the Launch.org program, including several ways that challenge (and others) have helped Mango Materials develop as a company.

Neil Boylan of the California Technology Council moderated the session. Foley and Lardner, as series sponsor, hosted the session at its offices in Palo Alto.

For more on the BioCalifornia Initiative, please click here.