Today, all college students are familiar with the term “hackathon.” However, the name hackathon, which is a hybrid between the words “hack” and “marathon,” is a fairly new word which was first used in June 1999. Two different companies, OpenBSD and Sun, individually named events where developers came together and developed new programs hackathons. In the past seventeen years, hackathons have become a popular way for companies to rapidly develop novel software technologies and discover new areas for innovation. In fact, some major companies were even born from such hackathons. Moreover, hackathons have also come to function as a forum to socialize and explore new technologies, without the added pressure of developing a first-class project.
Such hackathons have become extraordinarily popular on college campuses. These events generally last between twenty-four to forty-eight hours as participants form teams and work to complete a project of interest. Most hackathons take place on Shabbat, preventing Sabbath-observant students from participating fully.
As a way to accommodate those students who have yet to participate in a hackathon, Yeshiva University joined the list of colleges last year who host an annual hackathon, but with a twist. The twenty-four hour event began on a Saturday night after Shabbat, allowing Orthodox students who are normally at a disadvantage to fully participate. The event, which brought together approximately one hundred participants from multiple campuses in the tri-state area, was an important addition to the growing list of expansions within YU’s Computer Science department. It served as a community builder for the major and created a space for students to meet and work together.
Planning for this year’s hackathon, which will take place from May 7-8, is well under way. A team of thirty students is working to pull all the details of the event together. They have been split up into various teams with specifics tasks. Some focus on creating the schedule and ensuring that it integrates the intense hours spent coding with having a good time and exposing participants to new ideas. Other students are responsible for planning the logistics, while others are busy fundraising for the big event. Elisheva Rabinovich, one of the organizers of this year’s hackathon and president of Beren Campus’s Computer Science Society said that “students and administration have been very supportive. There has been a lot of recognition from the school that this is an important event.”
The goal for this year’s hackathon is to bring together a few hundred students from YU and other universities. The event is catered towards CS majors, but the hope is that non-computer science majors and high school students will also come to learn what coding is all about.
“A hackathon gives people a space to work on projects outside of class or to get a taste of what it is like to work on a project if they have never taken a CS class,” Rabinovich explained. She added that the purpose of the hackathon is for people with many different ideas to come together, see the power of coding, and have a lot of fun. It is also an ideal opportunity to take fun app ideas students may have in their heads and translate them into reality.
This year’s hackathon is only a small part of the many changes taking place within Yeshiva University’s Computer Science department, specifically at the Beren Campus. The Beren Campus Computer Science Society only began last year with just a few students and no major. It now has dozens of members, a high school mentorship program, networking and interviewing workshops and a hackathon. It is an exciting time to be interested in computer science at Stern College for Women.