About the challenge

Challenges will be released on Friday, January 19th, 2024 at 8 PM!

Requirements

Please submit:

  • A 3-minute video showcasing your project (methods, findings, etc.)
  • A link to your public Github repository containing your project code
  • Any additional materials specified by each challenge

Hackathon Sponsors

Prizes

$7,600 in prizes
Chevron Track - 1st
1 winner

Apple iPad Mini (Latest 6th Generation) 64GB, Wifi-6, All-Day Battery Life – Assorted colors for each winning team member (Space Gray, Pink, Purple, Starlight)

Chevron Track - 2nd
1 winner

$100 Amazon gift card per team member

Neurotech Track - 1st
1 winner

$150 Amazon gift card per team member

Neurotech Track - 2nd
1 winner

$75 Amazon gift card per team member

Beginner Track - 1st
1 winner

$100 Amazon gift card per team member

Beginner Track - 2nd
1 winner

$50 Amazon gift card per team member

Houston Astros - 1st
1 winner

Signed Memorabilia

Rice Datathon (Overall)- 1st
1 winner

$250 Amazon gift card per team member

MLH Winner Pins

Rice Datathon (Overall)- 2nd
1 winner

$125 Amazon gift card per team member

MLH Winner Pins

Rice Datathon (Overall)- 3rd
1 winner

$75 Amazon gift card per team member

MLH Winner Pins

Best Underclassman Team
1 winner

$50 Amazon gift card per team member

Best Visualization
1 winner

$50 Amazon gift card per team member

Best Social Impact
1 winner

$50 Amazon gift card per team member

Best Visiting Team
2 winners

$50 Amazon gift card per team member

Best Interdisciplinary Team
1 winner

$50 Amazon gift card per team member

Best DEI Hack sponsored by Fidelity
1 winner

At Fidelity, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion are viewed as major keys to the success of their business, which is why they are challenging you to come up with innovative ways to create forward-thinking financial tech that promotes equality for all people! We want you to use your hacking skills to find and build solutions that put financial opportunities and resources within reach for all communities, creating accessible, sustainable, and/or inclusive solutions. The team with the best hack will win a Fidelity branded wireless charger for each team member!

Best Use of Taipy
1 winner

Taipy is a powerful yet easy to use open-source Python library for creating full stack web applications! If you’re a Python developer, this library enables you to build interactive and dynamic graphical user interfaces and support them with data-driven backends. All of these functionalities are just a pip install taipy away and can cut your development time in half! Use Taipy in your hackathon project for a chance to win a set of Wireless Headphones for you and each of your team members, as well as a chance to have your project featured on the Taipy website!

Most Creative Use of Redis Cloud
1 winner

Prize: Libre Mini Computer with Redis Stack Server Pre-Installed
Redis Cloud is the easiest way to build and scale real-time applications - Period! It includes Redis Stack, adding indexing, querying, full-text search, JSON, time-series, and probabilistic data structures to the already-rich set of features of Redis.

Redis Stack works with all of your favorite programming languages and can be added to any existing application. It’s the easiest way to build real-time applications that scale and perform.

Show us how you’ve used Redis Cloud in a way that showcases your unique and specific data structure needs and each member of your team could win a personal, portable Redis Stack server IOT hardware unit to keep developing on the go. Find out why Stack Overflow Developers have voted Redis their “most loved and admired” noSQL database for years-running by rolling Redis into your MLH Hackathon project.

Sign up for your free Redis Cloud account, and head over to the MLH jump off page on Redis University for more info and docs links. Enter coupon code MLHFall2023 to claim your Redis Cloud credits and get started for free!

Best Use of Starknet
1 winner

Starknet Care Package for Coders
Starknet is redefining the very notion of Web3 by tackling one of the most intimidating technical challenges in the industry - scaling a blockchain while maintaining its security and decentralization.

Starknet was the first general purpose ZK-Rollup service on Ethereum in Feb. 2022, and has proved its potential to be a market leader. Essentially, it increases the processing speed, while reducing the cost of operating on the Ethereum blockchain.

As a result, we are seeing a variety of “traditional” tech businesses - payments / social media / AI / online gaming - now being integrated with blockchains using our technology.

Moreover, the Starknet community is a growing pool of global talent - from feisty college students to some of the most illustrious PhDs in the world.

Best AI Application Built with Cloudflare
1 winner

Arduino Kit
Cloudflare is one of the world’s largest networks enabling hackers like you to build, deploy, and deliver trusted applications, no matter where you are! With Cloudflare, you’ll have all the building blocks to create a full-stack application; from C3 instance deployment to object storage. You can even run machine learning models in the cloud and leverage your AI functionality via API requests using Cloudlfare’s Workers AI! Enjoy Cloudflare’’s generous free tier to get started at no cost! This weekend, we want you to build an AI Application utilizing Cloudflare’s numerous services for a chance to win Arduino Student Kits for you and your team!

Best Use of AI in Education
1 winner

Artificial Intelligence (AI) models, such as large language models (LLMs), are transforming how we interact with computers. During this weekend's hackathon, we want you to apply AI towards improving education to produce tools that support the quality, accessibility, and equitability of learning in today's classrooms. You can use AI to address any challenge teachers and students face, such as curriculum planning, question selection, teacher training, content generation, personalized feedback, automated grading and more.

For this challenge, we encourage you to draw on your own educational experiences and propose technical solutions to problems you've regularly encountered as students — after all, you are the best to know where our education system needs improvement. Design impactful and effective AI tools for education for a chance to win a TickTime Pomodoro Timer!

Devpost Achievements

Submitting to this hackathon could earn you:

Judges

Su Chen
Rice University, D2K Lab

Xinjie Lan
Rice University, D2K Lab

Steven Perry

Steven Perry
Rice University

Arlei Silva

Arlei Silva
Rice University

Joseph Young
Neurotech@Rice

Timothy Angeles

Timothy Angeles
Chevron

Diego Martinez

Diego Martinez
Houston Astros

JJ Ruby
Houston Astros

Roshan Mahant

Roshan Mahant
IEEE

Vikas Mendhe
IEEE

Grace Wang
Rice Datathon

Irpan Abdurahman

Irpan Abdurahman
Chevron

Zain Adil

Zain Adil

Caleb McKinney
Neurotech@Rice

Judging Criteria

  • Data Wrangling
    How do you clean, manipulate, and process the data to make sure the final data used in the model is clean? (1-5)
  • Visualization
    How do you use visualizations for exploratory data analysis and to communicate your findings? (1-5)
  • Findings and Analysis
    How do you interpret the findings of your project? What analysis do you perform on your results? (1-5)
  • Technical Skill
    Does your work use innovative and appropriate models, methodologies, or approaches? (1-5)
  • Best Social Impact (Bonus)
    Does your work effectively connect findings with larger global issues and demonstrate the potential to generate social good?

Questions? Email the hackathon manager

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