It look like AT&T don't seem to have any internal talent to develop anything, now they are persuing hackathons, Usually, they require you to develop something around an specific topic or use an specific set of technologies in which, one of the requirements was to implement an idea using AT&T or sponsors technologies, I have seen some very impressive projects been developed by CS proffesionals, for free?
What do you do when the app idea you’ve been working on gets released by someone with millions of dollars worth of funding? Nothing, what do you get ? an AT & T certificate , and it’s not the end of the line either like it may feel. It’s a sad that AT&T thinks that ideas are free and while you think you may have the only brain on the planet that dreamed up such a great app idea, some think you don't, The fact is if there is a problem to solve the human element call "greed" in all of us now looks to the tool of creating an app to get to the solution, but at what cost?, About all you can really is to fund your own project.