#WinnerSeries Translatte
HackDavis is the first major collegiate Hackathon at UC Davis completely run by students. We’re providing a platform to bring together the most talented students in California to address the world’s most pressing social issues.
Have you ever wanted to travel the world blending in effortlessly as a local? Translatte allows you to do so by integrating its technology to create a seamless experience as you become immersed within the languages of the world.
Translatte is an app built by Mohammad Sharif, Aatif Shah, Arjun Nayak, and Nangeli Alcantar. The app brings together people from all over the world through the power of language. On top of the basic translation capabilities it offers, Translatte encompasses speech features so people can both read messages and hear text out loud. Translatte won for Most Technically Challenging and Best Use of Rapid API, and the team was able to utilize Android’s text-to-speech technology in addition to the Google Cloud platform.
Mohammad and Aatif were able to share their experiences at HackDavis with us:
What school are you from? What year? Is this your first hackathon?
Mohammad: I am currently a 4th year student at San Jose State University, and HackDavis was my 5th or 6th hackathon! When I participated in HackDavis, I was a Junior.
Aatif: I’m from SJSU. At the time, I was a senior. No it wasn’t my first hackathon.
How did the theme of “coding for social good” shape your hackathon experience?
Mohammad: I really enjoyed the theme, I feel like themes in general really help keep the scope narrow to prevent from over-thinking but also broad enough to allow for creativity. It’s always nice to build something and know the idea would have a positive impact for the people that end up using it.
Aatif: I loved the theme of social good, because it’s a responsibility we have that isn’t talked about as much. This golden era of tech we live in is a double edged sword. Everything is readily available a couple taps away, so we’ve become increasingly isolated as we forego everyday interactions with fellow humanoids. As developers, it’s important for us to not only to come up with innovative solutions, but also be social architects thinking about the impact we have on society.
What was your favorite part of HackDavis?
Mohammad: Besides the awesome sponsors that were around and the free swag, I’d have to say the ping pong tables! It was nice to go take a break from hacking and play a fun game of ping pong with friends.
Aatif: I loved the location! HackDavis was great. Great big open area? Check. Good wifi? Check. Delicious food? Check. Awesome people and sponsors? Check and check! Simple recipe for a great hackathon.
What was the most challenging part of the hackathon?
Mohammad: For us the most challenging part of the hackathon was just working through some of the API’s we used. For me personally, it was the first time I used Google’s Optical Character Recognition API, so that was a little bit of a learning curve.
Aatif: Pulling off our mvp. It was perfect: we bit off as much as we could chew.
What are some valuable skills you gained from HackDavis?
Mohammad: I learned about RapidAPI, which is an interesting API service that makes adding API’s to your projects pretty simple. We used their platform to integrate Google Translate into our application. But aside from that, definitely loved learning the Google OCR API.
Aatif: Hackathons are awesome for rapid learning, and also building confidence. Its a marathon, not a sprint. Lots of people give up, so the rewards of sticking through it to the end is that much sweeter.
What was life after winning the hackathon (internship, networking, resume boost)?
Mohammad: It’s always nice to get that hackathon win down on a resume, I know a lot of companies nowadays love seeing students going to hackathons and love it even more to see them win. I interned at a cybersecurity company called Proofpoint, this past summer and I owe part of that to the fact that I had some hackathon wins on my resume.
Aatif: Resume boost for sure. I was an intern at IBM at the time, and my manager/coworkers were pretty impressed with my work/side projects/hackathons during the internship that they extended a full time offer.
Do you have any advice to hackathon newcomers?
Mohammad: If you’re thinking of doing it but are afraid to, just go to a hackathon and enjoy it. You don’t have to win. Especially if you’re new to programming or just new to hackathons, it’s a great experience overall. Why not spend a weekend building something fun, and getting free swag AND FOOD in the process?
Aatif: Put together a solid team and start brainstorming ideas and tech for the hackathon theme way beforehand. Also bring a blanket. Sleep if you’ve been up all night, especially if you’re gonna drive. Your life will thank you.
Additional comments/testimonies?
Mohammad: I will be looking forward to HackDavis 2018, very excited to see what changes you guys make to the hackathon the next year around! :)
Aatif: Thank you for a great experience! Definitely recommend HackDavis to everyone.
Tune in for more news from HackDavis! Like our Facebook page at facebook.com/HackDavis, and follow us on Twitter at @hack_davis. Interested in applying/sponsoring? Go to hackdavis.io for more details.
