Walking around campus, many may have seen posters, announcements or posts for an upcoming event called NW-Hack, but it may be unclear exactly what this event is or who it is for. According to the posters, NW-Hack is a “hackathon” that serves as a “competitive innovation event where teams collaborate to develop technical solutions that prioritize market viability and real-world impact.”
For those who do not know what a hackathon is, a hackathon is a collaborative event where participants, often coders and designers, solve real-world problems together in a short amount of time. Ordinarily, hackathons are 48 hours long, but in order to make the event more accessible for college students with busy schedules, Northwestern’s Hackathon lasts only one day. Companies will often host hackathons to discover talent for potential new hiring opportunities, as well as to foster creativity and problem-solving skills. NW’s Hackathon will function in the same way. Teams will compete to create solutions to problems that they are passionate about and then present it together. Teams are not expected to come up with a complete solution to their problem in only one day but are encouraged to get as far as they can.
The event will open at 8:30a.m. on Saturday, April 12 in the DeWitt Learning Commons Vogel Room and basement and it will go to about 9p.m., depending on the number of participants. At around 11:00a.m., there will be a variety of educational workshops led by industry partners to the event, such as Dakota IT Solutions, and Premier Network Solutions. In addition to this, in the afternoon participants will have the opportunity to collaborate with the NW Esports team in a one-hour Smash Challenge. The final presentations will begin at 7:00p.m., with awards soon to follow.
Teams competing can win prizes in four different categories: best presentation, best technical build, best marketability and best design.
This event is completely free, and each participant will be provided with 3 completely free meals, breakfast, lunch and dinner, in addition to snacks and refreshments throughout the day.
This event is open to all, not just computer-science people. Teams can compete and win without doing any coding. Students can either sign up with a team or sign up as a solo and be assigned to a team. Teams often include coders, designers, presenters and project managers, all of whom will greatly contribute to the final product.
In addition, this event is open to both high school and college students. There will be a separate track for each age group where each can win prizes in each of the four aforementioned categories. As an added bonus for the high school students, the winners of the four categories will each get a $500 scholarship to NW. Any students that want to get involved can find a poster around campus and scan the QR code to sign up before Friday, April 4.
Dr. Erica Vonk, the Director of Center for Innovation & Leadership, which is helping to put on the event, stated that she thought this event was important because it “is a great example of interdisciplinary collaboration at NW as multiple departments have come together for this event such as computer science, math, physics and more with the Center for Innovation and Leadership facilitating”. In addition, Vonk added that it “gives high school and college students a platform to showcase their problem-solving abilities within a limited amount of time.”
“It is important to promote great programs at NW and great employers in our region that are innovative and technical,” Vonk said “This event is a great opportunity for students to build their problem-solving and creative skills, as well as collaborate with others and network with professionals for their future careers.”
