The Women in Computing Hackathon (WiCHacks) mission is to enhance opportunities for students who identify as women or gender minorities in the tech industry and all students who support them, regardless of gender or sex. WiCHacks values diversity and inclusion as essential to our mission and welcomes anyone in support of moving this mission forward, including those of other genders or sex, to sign up for the hackathon. Hosted by Women in Computing (WiC) at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), the hackathon is a 24-hour, collaborative programming event in which participants create an app, website, game, or other piece of software throughout the event!

Schedule:

Saturday - March 3th

10:00 AM - Doors open
12:00 PM - Opening Ceremony begins [Hack Space]

WiC Intro
MLH Intro (5 min)
Constellation Brands Microtalk (3 min)
Keynote Speaker - Nuzhat (15 min)
WiC - Closing Remarks

12:30 PM - Opening Ceremony Ends
12:30 PM - Hacking Begins
12:30 PM - Team Formation Begins
1:00 PM - Lunch is served - DiBella’s Subs and Red Fern Wraps
2:00 PM - Tech Talks

2:00 PM - Constellation Brands - Speedy Styling with Tailwind CSS - (30 min) [Color Correction Room]
2:30 PM - Dicks Sporting Goods WIT Team - Brainstorming Your Project - (30 min) [Sound Correction Room]
2:50 PM - Devpost Workshop w/ COMS (30 min) [Color Correction Room]
3:00 PM - MLH's GitHub CoPilot (30-60 min) [Sound Correction Room]
3:30 PM - Waygate - Introduction to Computer Vision: 3D Measurement - (20 min) [Color Correction Room]
4:00 PM - Constellation Brands Symposium - Hacky Snack Necklaces & Affirmation Wall (45 min) [Atrium]
4:00 PM - Women in Engineering - Me and my pi... The relationship between me and the RaspberryPi 4 - (30 min) - [Sound Correction Room]
4:15 PM - M&T - Transition into Professional Life - (15 min) [Color Correction Room]
4:45 PM - Imagine Science - Talking the Talk: The Art of Technical Presentations - (30 min) [Color Correction Room]
5:00 PM - Wegmans Symposium - A Game You Feel Good About (30 min) - [ Sound Correction Room]
5:30 PM - Waygate Symposium - Kazoo Battle Royale - (30 min) [ Wegmans Theater]

6:00 PM - Dinner Time - Wegmans and Red Fern
7:00 PM - Round Table with Dicks Sporting Goods WIT Team [Wegman’s Theatre]
8:00 PM - MLH !Light [Wegman’s Theatre]
9:00 PM - Games fit for a Hacker [Wegman’s Theatre]
10:00 PM - “Midnight” Snack (Atrium)
11:00 PM - Cup Stack Competition [Atrium]

Sunday - March 5th

2:00 AM - Late Night Limbo [Atrium]
8:00 AM - Breakfast
10:00 AM - Startup Grind - How to Craft your Pitch - (30 Min) [Color Correction Room]
10:45 AM - Devpost submission deadline
12:00 PM - Lunch time - Chipotle
12:00 PM - Hacking ends
12:45 PM - Judging begins
2:45PM - Judging ends
3:00 PM - Closing Ceremony [Hack Space]

WiC Intro
MLH Representative (5 min)
Category Winners announced.
Grand Prize Giveaway Winner announced
Giveaway Winners announced

3:30 PM - Hackathon is over!

3:30 PM - Prize gathering!

Requirements

What to Build

Anything you would like to! We leave it up to you, with a wide variety of categories for you to submit your project to!

What to Submit

Judging will be in person this year so prepare a 2-3 minute presentation for the judges! Feel free to also submit a 3 minute video explaining your hack and showing it off! This is a great way to link your project on your resume and show it off to recruiters and classmates!

Hackathon Sponsors

Prizes

$5,736 in prizes

WiC: Best Women and Gender Hack

1 winner

Best hack that promotes women and gender minorities.

[PRIZE] Instax Link Wide Smartphone Printer, Instax Wide Instant Film, Squishmallows 11" Lil Gouda Plush (max of 4 prizes)

WiC: Best Secure Hack

1 winner

Best hack that implements cyber security and secure practices.

[PRIZE] Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ Board (max of 4 prizes)

WiC: Best Accessible UI

1 winner

Best UI/UX project with an emphasis on inclusivity/accessibility.

[PRIZE] HUION Inspiroy Drawing Tablet (max of 4 prizes)

WiC: Widget’s Wonders Hack

1 winner

Hackathons are about enjoying yourself! Best fun, silly project about something you enjoy.

[PRIZE] RK ROYAL KLUDGE M75 Mechanical Keyboard (max of 4 prizes)

WiC: Best Wellness

1 winner

Best hack that promotes the health and wellness of its users.

[PRIZE] Huloo Sleep Weighted Blanket Queen 20lbs (max of 4 prizes)

WiC: Best Game Hack

1 winner

Best hack of a game.

[PRIZE] Microsoft Xbox Game Pass Ultimate 3-Month Membership (max of 4 prizes)

WiC: Fan Favorite

1 winner

Best hack according to hackers.

[PRIZE] Pusheen Snackable Sushi Plush (max of 4 prizes)

WiC: Failure to Launch

1 winner

Best hack that didn't happen to work out in the end.

[PRIZE] Anker Power Bank (max of 4 prizes)

RIT Simone Center: Most Viable Product

1 winner

RIT's Simone Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship will award the winning team $1,000 to advance their concept toward commercialization. This money may be spent on prototyping, customer discovery travel expenses, or as a stipend to make the project an entrepreneurial co-op. NOTE: At least one RIT student must be on the winning team in order to qualify.

Constellation Brands: Elevate a Female Founders

1 winner

Elevate a Constellation Ventures female founder brand with delightful digital experience using an emerging technology. Launch a new product, extend a brand or launch your own brand!

[Prize]
Corona Extra Travis Matthew Tricenter backpack stuffed with a Pacifico LARQ PureVis water bottle and Corona Premier Canvas Belt Bag
Luxury Backpack + LARQ PureVis bottle + Everywhere Belt Bag

Waygate Technologies: Best Use of Computer Vision on Live Video

1 winner

Computer vision can be found in just about every industry today. The same technology that can automatically drive cars or assist with safety operations can also be used to add virtual hats on your head that move as you do. The hack that wins this category will utilize computer vision on a live video feed in the most creative way. To qualify as live video the hack only needs to process a video frame by frame without looking ahead or doing any pre-processing.
[PRIZE] AirPods 3rd Gen, Wearable Blanket (max of 4 prizes)

M&T Tech: Best Community Engagement UI

1 winner

We are looking for a project that will bring people together within any defined community, while still providing a seamless user experience.
[PRIZE] Orchid Lego Sets (max of 4 prizes)

MLH: 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.

[PRIZE] The team with the best hack will win a Fidelity branded wireless charger for each team member!

MLH: Best Domain Name from GoDaddy Registry

1 winner

GoDaddy Registry is giving you everything you need to be the best hacker no matter where you are. Register your domain name with GoDaddy Registry for a chance to win a Hack from Home Kit! Each Kit contains wireless earbuds, blue light glasses, selfie ring light and a pouch for easy transport.

MLH: Best Use of MongoDB Atlas

1 winner

MongoDB Atlas takes the leading modern database and makes it accessible in the cloud! Get started with a $50 credit for students or sign up for the Atlas free forever tier (no credit card required). Along with a suite of services and functionalities, you'll have everything you need to manage all of your data, and you can get a headstart with free resources from MongoDB University!

[PRIZE] Build a hack using MongoDB Atlas for a chance to win a M5GO IoT Starter Kit for you and each member of your team.

MLH: 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.

[PRIZE] Design impactful and effective AI tools for education for a chance to win a TickTime Pomodoro Timer!