Event Recap — UWB ACM Hackathon

UWB ACM Hacks’ 6th annual hackathon took place on May 5–7th, at the University of Washington Bothell campus. This year’s 3-day event focused on bringing back in-person activities and included three challenge tracks:

Education: Education moved online during quarantine, causing many to adjust their way of learning for their new environment. As society moves back to learning in person, create solutions to help assimilate society back to learning in person.

Entertainment: As a result of the quarantine, people have adapted to find sources of enjoyment through different at-home & virtual avenues. Now that quarantine is over, devise a solution to help people in finding, promoting, and collaborating with in-person entertainment again.

Sustainability: How can we ensure people are being environmentally conscious when engaging in outdoor, in-person activities again? Create solutions to maintain and promote sustainability now that gatherings and events are moving in person.

The challenge tracks were all inspired by the current state of the world and the return to in-person events. Bringing together students from both UWB and local colleges, UWB ACM successfully harnessed each hacker’s unique skill sets to build both connection and creativity. In fact, 117 participated in this year’s event and 25 projects were submitted. Hackers had the chance to win $2000 in cash prizes.

Guest speakers included:

• Joshua Hoogerwerf, Kudu’s co-founder and Lead Software Architect
• Dhruv Mehta, SWE II at Microsoft
• Dr. Hansel Ong, Software Manager III at Amazon & Professor for the graduate school of STEM at University of Washington — Bothell

Workshops held by the Allen Institute of Brain Science and EarthHacks were also included in this year’s event.

Zainab Malik, ACM President, shared:

“I am most proud of the attendance jump from 60 people last year to 177! This could not have been done without the support from Earth Hacks, and Allen Institute of Brain Science.”