Hackathons for everyone
I’ve won all five hackathons I’ve entered, and at USC I’m working to open hackathons to people who aren’t engineers.
That means designers, storytellers, and people who know the problem firsthand.
Who was left out
Hackathons are usually selective and built around engineers, so the people who know a problem best often aren’t in the room. At the ones I’ve been to, the crowd was about 95% male and almost entirely computer science builders.
What I made
At USC I’m on the partnerships team for HackSC, working to make hackathons less selective and less engineering-only. I’m also starting CoMinds.org around the same idea.
What happened
My five wins: Best Accessibility Hack at Los Altos Hacks VI, Most Technically Complex Hack at Los Altos Hacks VII, Best Hyperspell Hack and Convex 1st Prize at the Nozomio Hackathon, 1st Prize and Audience Choice at the MongoDB Persistent Context Hackathon, and Best Use of marimo at the CoreWeave Agent Loops Hackathon.
What I'd test next
Whether people who aren’t engineers skip hackathons because of what they know or because they don’t feel they belong.