5 Best Programming Hackathons Every Programmer🧑💻 Should Attend
With programming being one of the most sought-after skills, many individuals aspire to learn and champion it. If you are an avid programmer, you definitely know about hackathons, as they have been since the 90s. However, recently they have gained traction.
What exactly is a hackathon?🤔
It is an event where a group of avid coders and programmers come together and compete with each other to come up with an acceptable and effective solution to a real-world problem within the given time.
The first hackathon took place in 1999 by OpenBSD in Canada. A group of 10 developers succeeded in integrating IPv6 and IPSEC stacks into an operating system within a week.
Today, software developers, computer programmers, graphics designers, and other technology enthusiasts come together as a team for 24 to 48 hours and strive to create a solution in the form of hardware or software.
You should consider participating in hackathons if you are well-versed in coding and wish to showcase your skills to the world.
Here👇, I have listed the most famous hackathons in the world.
HackMIT
Organizer: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Founded: 2014
A weekend-long program, HackMIT, provides an opportunity for college students across the globe to come together and work on hardware and software projects. One of the largest hackathons for undergrads, HackMIT allows 1000 students to gather a the MIT campus every fall.
MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) is one of the best computer science schools in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
At the HackMIT event, students build and create technology projects from scratch. Though mobile apps and websites are common projects, students are encouraged to build anything using their out-of-the-box ideas.
There are four tracks for students to work on — Education, New Frontiers, Entertainment, and Sustainability. The best one from each track s rewarded with a prize. Also, the second and third-best projects also get rewards.
You can apply here.
HackZurich
Organizer: Jonathan Isenring, Ramsus Rothe, Setareh Gharibi
Founded: 2014
Europe’s largest and most prestigious hackathon, HackZurich, invites 600 international participants yearly. They select these participants from a pool of 5,500 applications, representing their universities from 85 countries.
A 40-hour hackathon, HackZurich, forsters participants to work as a team of 2 to 5 people striving to develop web, mobile, and hardware applications. More interestingly, international companies provide their cutting-edge technologies, tools, datasets, hardware, and APIs, to participants to boost new creations.
The primary intention of HackZurich is to foster the idea of exchanging knowledge, mutual learning, and inspiration, along with a fun and unique atmosphere.
NASA International Space Apps Challenge (Space Apps)
Organizer: NASA
Founded: 2012
An international hackathon for coders, scientists, designers, storytellers, technologists, and many others, NASA International Space Apps Challenge is one of the largest space and science hackathons globally. In this event, teams across the globe address NASA’s data to solve real-world problems on earth and in space.
Space Apps is a two-day event held every October in different locations. Participants solve the challenges submitted by NASA experts. Further, the space agency experts evaluate the submissions and declare winners who qualify for one of 10 Global Awards.
The hackathon’s primary motive is to foster critical thinking, creativity, and collaboration and to motivate the growth and diversity of next-generation scientists, technologists, programmers, etc.
MHacks
Organizer: The University of Michigan
Founded: 2013
A semi-annual hackathon held by the University of Michigan, MHacks is a 36-hour event where students worldwide come together to develop hardware and software-based creative solutions. A few popular sub-tracks of the hackathons include Education, Social, Medical, and Justice.
A group of students at the University of Michigan started this event after they attended a hackathon named PennApps. Let us discuss it below.
PennApps
Organizer: The University of Pennsylvania
Founded: 2009
Philadelphia’s first college hackathon, PennApps, has revolutionized how engineering students demonstrate their skills. It spawned a league of hackathons in the nation later. Students from different nations, including Switzerland, Canada, and Singapore, joined this event for the Spring and fall editions for a weekend.
Novices get to work with seasoned professionals on stunning projects, where they learn a lot and evolve into better engineers.
Participate in Hackathons!
What is stopping you from demonstrating your coding skills to the world? Explore more about the aforementioned hackathons, know the prerequisites, and the whens and hows to participate in events. Besides, you get to learn a lot from these events and also have an opportunity to get aware of numerous cutting-edge technologies.
Apart from that, you will get to explore different places in the world!😛
See you soon with new content!
