Behind nwHacks 2022
Our second year online for Western Canada’s largest hackathon
We’re back again with nwHacks, Western Canada’s largest hackathon celebrating innovation, creativity, and inclusivity with a weekend of project creation, networking, workshops, and mini activities! This year we were very excited to welcome hackers from around the world to dive into the deep sea of tech together.
We’d love to recap what happened at this year’s nwHacks. Get ready!
This year we welcomed:
- 644 hackers 💻
- 29 sponsor reps 🙌
- 28 mentors 💪
- 43 organizers 💦
And had the following numbers:
- 122 projects submitted 🔧
- 115 activity prize winners 🎉
- 54 announcements 📢
- 6,805 messages in Discord
- 40% first-time hackers 🌱
Winning Projects
- 1st Place: Pitch.ai
- 2nd Place: SafetyNet
- 3rd Place: talko
- Honorable Mentions: Deetect, Jesture, Spotif.ai
- MLH Prize: haretostudy.tech, InterCloud, Where’s The Bus?, RMS Tutoring Interactive Voice Response
- Covalent Prize: Wallet Tracker, Cripte, Museums
- TTT Studios Prize: Covid Run
- Kabam Prize: combat food
- Microsoft Prize: Study Buddy, talko
- OpenAI Prize: PitchAI, AuDela
Workshops
Before nwHacks, we had a couple of pre-hackathon workshops to familiarize hackers with the tech industry and what to expect at the hackathon, all run by fellow students who double as organizers at nwPlus. We also had workshops run by organizers and sponsors during nwHacks, to introduce technologies to hackers, new or experienced.
Accessible Development with Kevin
Creating a user-facing application (and by extension, hackathon project) with accessibility in mind not only provides access for all users (regardless of any impairments), but also improves user experience and quality of the app! Kevin goes over some examples of accessible development, and encourages hackers to consider accessibility when creating their project. See the recording here.
UX Design for Web3 (Blockchain, dApps, NFTs) with Bonny
Web3 is one of the hottest topics in tech right now, and Bonny from the nwPlus design team presents user experience considerations when designing Web3 applications for the general user. She emphasizes education and accessibility in her design proecss. See the workshop recording here.
Frontend w/ React and Heroku with Ben and Sam
nwPlus organizers Ben and Sam showed hackers how to create a GitHub issues explorer in React using the GitHub API, and deployed the app with Heroku! The skills that were taught in this workshop gave hackers a full suite of tools to bootstrap (and deploy!) their first full-stack application. See the recording for the workshop here!
Build in Web3 with One Unified API with the Covalent Team
Leilani Ledingham and Harish Raisinghani from Covalent brought their professional knowledge in the Web3 space to show hackers how to develop in the Web3 space with the Covalent API. Find the workshop recording here.
Build rich experiences using Azure Communication Services UI Libraries with the Microsoft team
Interpal Singh Aulakh and other mentors from Microsoft’s Azure Communication Services (ACS) team demonstrated how to use the UI libraries available to developers, published by the ACS team. He showed what ACS is capable of, how to get started, and why the technology supports developers worldwide. Watch the workshop here.
Looking for more workshops? Visit our YouTube channel for all our workshop recordings from all our hackathons!
Thank you for supporting us!
Sponsors
Our hackathons are made possible with generous support from our corporate sponsors. These are the sponsors that supported nwHacks this year:
Mentors
Our 28 mentors worked day and night, tirelessly, to support hackers through the ideation, creation, and demonstration processes for their projects. They helped with everything from identifying a project idea to debugging the project code. Thank you, mentors!
Judges
Judges have to make the difficult, difficult decision on how to rank the countless incredible projects created by our hackers. They go above and beyond when assigned with the impossible task of judging projects. Thank you, mentor judges and panel judges!
Hackers
Last but never least, nwHacks would not be possible this year without the undying enthusiasm from our hackers! This year especially, as they joined us from around the world despite the difficulties of hacking remotely. We’re so thankful that so many hackers were able to join us this year at nwHacks 2022.
Thank you so much everyone for participating in nwHacks 2022! It was lovely too see everyone working so hard, building something significant. I had so much fun organizing nwHacks 2022, and I really hope y’all had fun as well! Hopefully, we’ll see you again next year, IN-PERSON! — Michelle, nwHacks 2022 Director
Here’s to many more years of deep diving into tech!
nwHacks 2021 by nwPlus UBC.
Edit(s): Feb 24 to update number of activity prize winners
