Many of you may have heard of (or participated in) hackathons during your time in high school. For those of you who are not familiar with a hackathon, it doesn’t refer to actually illegally hacking government agencies or companies :D. A collegiate hackathon is essentially an event (usually 24 or 36 hrs) where students build pretty much anything they want using the tools available to them. Usually these end of being software or hardware projects; however, there aren’t any limitations other than the fact that it must be legal.

HackIllinois

HackIllinois is UIUC’s hackathon and it is a 36 hr Spring event that encompasses students from across the nation and ~50-60 companies. HackIllinois is run by an ~20-25 person group and involves teams such as Branding, Experience, and Outreach. Similar to HackIllinois is another organizing team runs events called HackNights. These events are essentially mini hackathons that are focussed within UIUC and will be themed towards specific areas (i.e. Finance). If you are interested in helping organize either of these keep a lookout for more information on Facebook by liking the pages and joining the group.

Side Note: we are also big proponents of Open Source! If you are interested in contributing, check out: https://github.com/HackIllinois/api-2017/tree/staging

IlliniHackers

There’s a lot more Hackathons than just HackIllinois. Illini Hackers is a group of people that travel across the Midwest (and beyond) to participate in these 24 to 36 hour events. Hackathons are a great opportunity to meet new people, make cool projects, eat free food, win prizes, and more! Keep an eye out on the Facebook group to find rides and teams. We’ll be coordinating transportation to events and providing opportunities to form teams throughout the semester. Be sure to check out https://mlh.io/ for some events. As a freshman, just apply and see what happens. Purdue, Michigan, and Northwestern usually throw events in the fall that don’t require much commitment.