Are you an IT beginner looking to add real-world experience to your resume or simply looking to learn how to optimize an application you’ve been working on? Participating in a hackathon is an excellent experience for you. Hackathons allow IT beginners to showcase their talents and even win a cash award.
For experienced professionals, hackathons provide exposure to new computing tools and resources as well as the opportunity to collaborate with experts in their field that can help them reach their application performance goals. Here are the top 12 hackathons to look forward to in 2023.
What Is a Hackathon?
Hackathons bring together individuals from various backgrounds and different stages in their careers (from students to experienced professionals) to solve problems of common interest. Hackathons centered on technological projects typically take the form of a coding marathon where attendees collaborate to build web apps, mobile apps, robots, or other software applications.
Others may involve collaborating on developing new ways to work with data through data visualization, data processing, data gathering or using data to solve a problem. Hackathons can be held online or on-site at a specific venue, or, as is the case with hybrid hackathons, they can be held simultaneously online and on-site. In any case, you will be assigned to work in a group on a specified challenge.
See More: Campus Hackathons Prepare Students for Tech and Coding Careers
How Do Hackathons Work?
Typically, hackathon organizers post a problem statement publicly when they announce the event. If the hackathon is billed as an open-ended event, the organizers will ask potential participants to submit their own problem statement, which may or may not be targeted toward a specific topic.
Participants then register for the event either as an individual or as a group. If you sign up as an individual, you will be assigned to a group during orientation on the first day of the hackathon, also known as the presentation event.
After the presentation, all participants move on to group breakout sessions, during which group members work on their projects. The work concludes on the scheduled project submission date, which may occur within a few days or weeks (if online) or at the end of a weekend for an in-person event.
On the project submission day, the groups present their projects to a panel of experts who judge their presentations based on predetermined criteria, such as level of complexity or innovation, implementation, or ease of use. If it is a competitive hackathon, the judges announce the winners on the last day of the event.
See More: An Inside Look at the VMworld Hackathon
How To Decide Which Hackathon Is Right for You?
Now that you know what to expect from a hackathon, how do you choose among the hundreds of hackathons organized each year? First, don’t hesitate to join a hackathon if you don’t have extensive programming skills or technological knowledge.
You can still contribute by creating and editing documentation, testing or debugging, or paradigm development. If you are new to hackathons, you should attend a pre-event. Hackathons often offer pre-events geared toward beginners. They provide an introduction to the tools used during hackathons and allow you to network with other first-time attendees.
Secondly, you should consider which of the following options is best for you:
- Should you choose an open-ended hackathon where participants choose their own problems to work on or one centered on a theme selected by the organizers, such as climate change?
- Do you prefer a vertical group organization, where project leaders initiate planning, emphasize structure, and guide the groups, or a horizontal structure, with group members assigning roles to themselves?
A word of caution: Ideas and solutions developed during a hackathon usually become part of the public domain. If you are concerned that someone else may use your ideas, a hackathon may not be the right place to unveil them.
Top 12 Hackathons in 2023Â
1. ICON HyperBuildÂ
Date: January 26 – March 16, 2023 (Submissions), Competition ends March 27, 2023
Location: Online
Are you a blockchain developer looking to develop a cross-chain project that transcends blockchain barriers? If so, this hackathon is for you.
ICON provides interoperability technologies such as BTP, ICON Bridge and ICE/Snow network, allowing developers to crossover multiple blockchains. You will be challenged to use ICON tools to build an interoperable solution from one of the following blockchain trending categories: tooling/infrastructure, social impact/public good, metaverse, NFT, and gaming and utility.
Let’s say you work in the social/impact/public good category. In that case, you will be tasked with developing blockchain protocols/platforms built using ICON project interoperability features to create significant or positive change to solve or at least address social issues and challenges such as climate change, economic inequality, fake news, and other harmful or unjust practices in the world.
This is a competitive hackathon awarding $40,000 in total prizes.Â
2. DeveloperWeek 2023 Hackathon
Date: February 1 – 17, 2023
Location: Oakland Convention Center, Oakland, CA and Online
Regularly attracting over 800 participants, DevelopWeek 2023 Hackathon is the largest challenge-driven in-person and online hackathon, co-located with DeveloperWeek 2023. This year’s challenges include the following:
- Build a performant and cost-effective solution using Oracle Container Engine for Kubernetes (OKE), OCI Functions, and a managed database of your choice (Oracle DB, Autonomous, or MySQL.)
- Build a multiplayer game with 1v1 winner/loser game logic using Babylon.JS and deploy it on OCI.Â
- Use Zoom’s Meeting SDK to build the Zoom-branded meeting experience into apps, platforms, websites, and services for any industry.
This is a competitive hackathon awarding $31,700 in total prizes.Â
3. ELC Accessible Beauty Hackathon, Hack4Ally
Date: February 4 – March 20, 2023
Location: Online
Are you interested in improving technology’s effectiveness and ease of use for consumers? Then The Estée Lauder Companies Accessible Beauty Hackathon is the one for you. It will provide you with opportunities to showcase your ideas for developing accessible and inclusive UX solutions for 16% of the world’s population who experience some form of disability.
This year, Hack4Ally is focused on ideating and developing accessible and inclusive solutions specifically for the challenges that people with disabilities face in their beauty experience every day. Your challenge will be to create a more inclusive and accessible beauty experience for all.
This is a competitive hackathon awarding a total of $61,500 in prizes.
4. HackHERS 2023
Date: February 11 -12, 2023
Location: Rutgers University College Avenue Student Center, New Brunswick, NJ
In its ninth year, over 500 students will converge on the Rutgers University Student Center for the HackHERS 2023 hackathon, create with code, and turn their ideas for social good, AI, fintech, the environment, and UI/UX into reality for 24 hours.
HackHERS is not only dedicated to exploring technology and building the next big thing but also to address issues of the gender gap in technology.
This is a competitive hackathon awarding $2,248 in prizes.
5. (HATCH) HudsonAlpha Tech Challenge 2023
Date: March 3 – 5, 2023
Location: Paul Propst Center, 800 Hudson Way Northwest, Huntsville, AL
If you are interested in how technology can be applied to genomics and biotech, this hackathon will interest you. Today’s technologies generate vast amounts of genetic information that require tools to organize and visualize this data.
During this hackathon, participants are introduced to genomics, genetics, and the future of biotechnology through specific challenges that ask them to solve a problem by applying and manipulating big data.
For example, one challenge last year’s participants faced was creating a custom web-based application to interpret pharmacogenomic data by pulling resources from various databases, creating custom interpretation fields and generating both an API and PDF endpoint.
This is a competitive hackathon awarding $4,500 in prizes.
6. Philly Codefest 2023 at Drexel University
Date: March 11 – 12, 2023
Location: Drexel University College of Computing and Information (CCI), Philadelphia, PA
This hackathon allows developers to showcase their skills in creating AI applications. During Philly Codefest, programmers will be asked to generate real-world scalable software and hardware solutions to improve and expand topics in AI and learn to work with new tools in their field.
This is a competitive hackathon; prizes are yet to be announced.Â
7. LaunchHacks II
Date: March 15 -19, 2023
Location: Online
If you’d rather showcase one of your own projects rather than work on a defined problem statement or challenge, then an open-ended hackathon is for you. LaunchHacks II is an open-ended event that encourages you to be creative and innovative and launch your initiatives using the power of technology. You can build anything you choose and qualify to compete for $10,000 in prizes.
This is a competitive hackathon awarding $10,000 in prizes.
8. Open Sea Lab 3.0 Hackathon
Date: March 27 – 28, 2023
Location: Online
If you are interested in working with open-source data to co-create with other team members solutions to ocean challenges, the Open Sea Lab 3.0 hackathon is for you. During this event, data and multidisciplinary scientists, software developers, and change-makers around the world employ open-source marine data provided by EMODnet and other relevant data sources to develop solutions to Ocean challenges.
Participants form teams to address specific Ocean challenges such as protecting and restoring marine and freshwater biodiversity, eliminating pollution of oceans, seas and waters, and eliminating greenhouse gas emissions from maritime economic activities.
This is a competitive hackathon awarding $15,000 in prizes.
9. University of Florida Open Hackathon
Date: May 17, May 23-25, 2023
Location: Online
Application deadline: March 01, 2023
This hackathon is for computational scientists who want to port, accelerate, and optimize their scientific applications to modern computer architectures, including CPUs, GPUs, and other computing technologies.
Participants will be paired with dedicated, experienced mentors who will aid them in realizing their performance goals using various programming models, libraries, and tools.
After the event, participants should have either accelerated or optimized their applications on the latest supercomputing hardware or have a clear roadmap of the next steps needed to leverage these resources.Â
10. Princeton Open Hackathon
Date: June 14, 21-23, 2023
Location: Online
Application deadline: April 5, 2023
This open-ended hackathon provides opportunities for computational scientists to accelerate their AI or HPC research under the guidance of expert mentors from national laboratories, universities, and industry leaders in a collaborative environment. Scientists from all fields are welcome to participate, from astrophysics to machine learning to genomics.
At the end of the event, participants should have either accelerated or optimized their applications on the latest supercomputing hardware or have a clear roadmap of the next steps needed to leverage these resources.Â
11. NERSC Open Hackathon
Date: July 12, July 19 -21, 2023
Location: NERSC Facility, Berkeley, CA or Online
Hosted by the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), NVIDIA, and OpenACC, this open-ended hackathon provides opportunities for computational scientists to accelerate their AI or HPC research under the guidance of expert mentors from national laboratories, universities, and industry leaders in a collaborative environment.
At the end of the event, participants should have either accelerated or optimized their applications on the latest supercomputing hardware or have a clear roadmap of the next steps needed to leverage these resources.Â
12. BNL Open Hackathon
Date: August 14, 22-24, 2023
Location: Online
The BNL Open Hackathon provides opportunities for computational scientists to accelerate and optimize their AI or HPC research under the guidance of expert mentors from national laboratories, universities, and industry leaders in a collaborative environment. Mentors and participants work together to realize performance gains and speedups using various programming models, libraries and tools.
At the end of the event, participants should have either accelerated or optimized their applications on the latest supercomputing hardware or have a clear roadmap of the next steps needed to leverage these resources.
Make hackathons fun!
It may seem counterintuitive, but if you spend the whole time hacking at a hackathon, you are not getting the most out of it. Be sure to take advantage of the coffee breaks, social/happy hours and other social interactions sponsored by the event.
Not only will you get a welcome break from the intense coding breakout sessions, but you will also get to meet interesting and like-minded people in other groups. You may even be able to develop future collaborations.
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