Hack for Humanity Creates Platform for Innovation and Altruism

Santa Clara’s Association for Computer Machinery’s 10th annual hackathon saw a historic turnout and its first all-women-winning team

On Feb. 18, the Association for Computer Machinery (ACM), and its Women in Computing advocacy chapter, ACM-W, hosted their most successful Hack for Humanity to date. 58 teams signed up for this year's hackathon, which was sponsored by 11 Santa Clara departments and international technology companies. 

Participants formed teams in Locatelli Hall to create a coding project in 24 hours that addressed prevalent social issues and could only prepare by devising an idea. The event ran continuously from 9 a.m. on Feb. 18 until 2 p.m. the following day, with most hackers remaining in the same room throughout. 

The first-place team, consisting of six Santa Clara women, incorporated a gaming aspect into their final project along with a web interface and a quiz. The project, “Speks,” was created to address the underdiagnosis of women with autism.

“As president of the ACM-W, I was so excited to see this team win,” said junior computer science major Ananya Pagadala. “Not only was Speks a female-oriented project, it was also the first time I've seen a team of all women win in my time participating in the Hackathon.” 

Commenting on the community focus of Hack for Humanity, Pagadala explained that the premise of the event aligns with Santa Clara’s values and gives college students who are interested in computer science an opportunity to immersively explore the subject. 

“It's a great way to get students involved in building projects that positively affect communities and the world,” said Pagadala. “In our classes, we do not complete long-term projects like this, so it's a great real-world experience of team building and working in an environment that you would see in the post-grad world.” 

 A computer science background is not necessary for participation, and all majors were welcome.

“We see people from all levels of education, from first year to graduate students,” Pagadala said. “I saw a lot of biochemical engineering students and an anthropology major. There is a good mix of business, computer science–everything–because everyone's skills are valuable in this sort of competition.”

Throughout the hackathon, workshops and social events are hosted to help participants develop necessary technical skills and build community. Will Cockrum, ACM president, organized these additional events to further develop important computer science-related skills.

“In the past, we've done maybe one or two workshops during the event, so having seven workshops was a big step up from that,” Cockrum said. “We think it really helped people create better projects. There are many things that you don't learn in the computer science curriculum that you need to actually build some real software, so we were trying to fill in those gaps.” 

Each year, the event is sponsored by businesses in the tech industry and donations from departments at Santa Clara. ACM industry liaisons work directly with the donors to create a network of students and professionals. 

“Industry involvement gives students better resources and gets the wheels turning on their projects,” said Pagadala. “One of our big sponsors this year was Roblox. We had never worked with them before, but they are such an important presence in the Bay Area and Silicon Valley, and I noticed a lot of students went the gaming route this year.”

The projects are judged by Santa Clara faculty and industry professionals after they are complete. The teams give a two-minute presentation about or demonstration of their projects and are evaluated on their impressiveness, polish, completeness, innovation and the projected impact of the project. 

The judging process also acts as a recruitment tool for sponsors to view students in action. 

“For internships or jobs, you get maybe an hour-long interview with someone that's likely not super deep,” Cockrum said. “Since this is a 24-hour event, it showcases a lot of useful skills that a person might demonstrate such as teamwork, being able to learn quickly and present your ideas.”