Your Team is Everything
After a roller coaster of a weekend, I’ve finally recovered from sleep deprivation and started the process of reflection on the craziness that is HackDuke.
This was going to be a post about HackDuke Fall 2014 and a recap of our stats, the effectiveness of some of our new initiatives and insights about the hackathon. Well, that will have to wait till later.
Because first, I want to thank the HackDuke organizing team.
Jesse Hu
Jesse, you are reason why students from Canada, Illinois, Indiana, Virginia, Maryland, Georgia and Florida were able to get to HackDuke in the first place. I don’t know how you managed to finagle the bus prices down to the amount that we got— it seemed like black magic. Thanks to you, over 200 students were able to get to HackDuke, have the time of their lives and get home safe and sound.
Also, without you, most of our sponsors wouldn’t even be here, and we wouldn’t have raised as much money as we did to make this event possible. You’ve been there from the very start, since HackDuke Fall 2013. Working with you was so much fun, and I sincerely enjoyed every moment of it.
Yu Zhou Lee
Yu Zhou, your personality and your care for social issues played such a huge role when we were trying to figure out exactly how to run a social good hackathon. Without you, HackDuke would’ve fallen into all of the pitfalls of an extremely ineffective, socially unaware and rather dull event.
Additionally, your ability in coming up with ideas for telling our story, mission and passion through our video and marketing campaigns are absolutely amazing. I’m so grateful that you decided to join the team for HackDuke Spring 2014. We’ve accomplished some great things together.
Bojia Chen & Logan Su
Lojia and Bogan! Wait…
You two will forever be remembered as hardware and logistics gods. Everything that you’ve done this past semester has completely exceeded everyone’s expectations and I love you guys for it. Our own registration system? Stats? Uploading forms for travel reimbursements? Badges? Bar codes? Our crazy excessive, but awesome monitor/Raspberry Pi sign system?
You pretty much stuffed HackDuke’s tech stack into a rocket and sent it to the next galaxy. It’s too freaking cool.
Gautam Chebrolu
Gautam, you are the most incredibly responsible person I’ve ever met. The insights that you have from working with the Kenan Institute of Ethics and your passion for social good has pushed our event to be the awesome that it is today. You went from being a volunteer during HackDuke Fall 2013 to leading the whole fleet of volunteers for the HackDuke Spring 2014 and Fall 2014. You revolutionized the way that we handled volunteers.
Not to mention, that all of our participants and mentors would’ve starved to death if it weren’t for you.
Scotty Shaw
Scotty, I’ve seen the care that you’ve taken in trying to make sure all of the mentors and sponsors were comfortable. The guidance that you’ve provided them in the days leading up to the event was very much appreciated, especially when Jesse and I were running around, busy taking care of many other things.
Nihir Patel
Nihir, you are the extinguisher of fires. Thanks for keeping a cool head, handling all craziness and doing damage control during the event. It did wonders.
Ying Qi
Ying, thanks for handling that disaster of an interaction where I almost ripped that kid in half out of stress and sleep deprivation. You helped out so much day of for both HackDuke Spring 2014 and Fall 2014. Definitely looking forward in working with you and Sara to figure out how we can inspire, mentor and motivate more lady programmers at Duke!
Sara Pak
Sara, you were there whenever I needed you, especially when it came down to taking care of most university sponsorship. Thanks for still sticking with us and being heavily involved day of even though you had RA duties every time we had our weekly HackDuke meetings.
Chris Dee
Chris, amazing job in getting all of the Fuqua Energy Club involved and all of the work that you’ve done for the Energy & Environment track!
Dimeji Abidoye
Dimeji, thanks for always being here to support and deal with my insanity in the stressful and sleepless months leading up to HackDuke. You were a great person to bounce ideas off of.
Aaron Krolik
I mean, you’re the Budget Truck king. ‘Nuff said.
Maybe it’s the second semester senior nostalgia hitting early. Maybe it has something to do with this being my last HackDuke ever as lead organizer. Regardless, I feel incredibly blessed to have worked with such a talented group of people.
❤
