AUSTIN, Texas -- Developers and hackers spent the weekend working with the new Army Futures Command.

• Top teams won cash prizes
• Groups experimented with commercial drones and interacted with soldiers

The Futures Command hosted a Hack-a-thon with the help of the Department of Defense's National Security Technology Accelerator Program.

Participants came from all backgrounds, including academic, military and commercial startups. The goal was to get innovative and new ways to hack counter-drone technology, which are systems that detect or intercept drones.

The groups were able to play around with commercial drones and interact with soldiers, who face these problems daily.

"If we are going to solve problems differently, we have to get outside of Washington, DC and find talented people in great ideas where they sit. And that means Austin, Boston, Omaha, Denver, Los Angeles, and that's why Army Futures is here and MD5 is here. Because we have to go where the talent is and the truth is we've got great top tier universities here in Texas. UT Austin is right here, Texas A&M just down the road. We've got a phenomenal venture start up community here and we are trying to take advantage of both of those communities to pull those ideas, that tech and talent back into the Department of Defense. If we can't do that, we are just not going to be able to solve problems as fast as we need to,” said Morgan Plummer, Managing Director with The National Security Technology Accelerator.

The top teams won cash prizes and the opportunity to develop their solution with the U.S. Department of Defense.