Y-Hack? Why not?
Rise of the hackathon
Every once in a while people just make it happen. There’s an opportunity and they seize it. Just the other weekend I got to witness this first-hand as a young team from Yale lead by Frank Wu, Mike Wu, and Charles Jin threw a mega hackathon out of nowhere. No one was expecting that Y-Hack would be such a success. Well, no one except for the small team who had been quietly running around The Valley fundraising all summer.
This was the loudest hackathon I’ve ever been to. From the opening kickoff which looked more like a group of commanders getting their army pumped for battle from the 3rd story balcony of the insane venue to the 2am rap battle that captured the attention of hundreds of hackers at the event to the final expo and ceremony which took place at the almost unreal Yale Commons, these guys really went the extra yard to come out of nowhere and emerge as one of the best hackathons in the world. This was Yale’s battle cry, their message to the hacker community that they are here to play.
It’s strange. Rather than focus on competing by having the best hackathon team, schools have begun competing on throwing the best hackathon. I think this is a great way to compete. I’m not sure how it happened, but the recent competition among student hackathons was a driving force for the EXPLOSION in hackathons this past year as they took colleges all across the country by storm — and this is just the start!
The greatest part is that this competition is soooooo healthy. You wouldn’t believe how much PennApps helped make the first MHacks happen. The community is getting closer than ever, and as we figure things out, we are immediately sharing and discussing those findings in completely open communication lines between the different hackathon organizers. In fact, we even started Major League Hacking, pretty much the NCAA for hackathons, to facilitate collaboration and competition between schools. Sure, things aren’t perfect and every once in a while we step on each other’s toes (Y-Hack and HackPrinceton were on the same weekend), but I couldn’t ask for anything better. Both hackathons that weekend were better than ever before and well over a thousand students felt the impact, potentially altering the course of their lives as my first hackathon did to mine.
In their first go around, the Y-Hack team showed that you can go big from the start. You can do the same. I look forward to seeing a ton of schools go big as we dive into the second ever hackathon season next semester. Will your school throw one of the mega hackathons next semester? Rise to the occasion and make it happen.
I promised Y-Hack that if they went big, I’d be there to help. I promise the same thing to you. If you are going big, hit me up: twitter.com/davefontenot
