About the challenge

A hackathon is an event where teams collaborate on a project, or "hack", given a certain time limit. At StormHacks, teams of 1-4 collaborate over 24 hours to brainstorm and innovate solutions to real-world problems. Or they are free to work on whatever fun/silly ideas they have in mind, the door is open. We will be inviting various mentors, judges, and guests working in the tech industry to share their expertise and knowledge to our participants. Winning teams will be selected based on various criteria that will be revealed closer to our event.

Make your first hackathon special at StormHacks 2024. In past events, 46% of participants have been new hackers— SH24 is one of the top places for you to join other beginners in tech and self-starters for life-long learning, challenges and more.

One of the most challenging things about a hackathon can be developing your final submission, especially for hackers who are aiming to build their design skills, sharing their ideas and stories through visuals and experiences. This can often lead to people feeling left out or discouraged from evenentering their first hackathon, especially if you're entering on your own.

For all you designers, we're hosting prizes and workshops to help support your no-code solutions and prototypes!

The hackathon will be packed with activities such as wellness workshops, games, trivia and more all throughout the event! You can even win some prizes through some of our mini contests.

 

Requirements

What to Build

We will be providing hackers with themes/topics at the opening ceremony of the event. Hardware projects are allowed, and we are so grateful that MLH is able to provide the materials/supplies.

We have five tracks:

  1. Social Good
  2. Environment and Sustainability
  3. Entertainment
  4. Artifical Intelligence
  5. Innovation

What to Submit

  • You MUST submit a github link
  • To showcase your project you must do a live presentation (max 4 mins) for 2-3 pairs of judges in SUB Dining Lounge (main area of hacking)
  • Only at least 1 member is needed to present the project, the entire team does not need to present for the project the qualify

Hackathon Sponsors

Prizes

$CAD 2,895 in prizes
Best Use of MATLAB
1 winner

MATLAB and Simulink are computational tools used at over 100,000 businesses, government and university sites in over 190 countries. Use MATLAB and/or Simulink exclusively or integrate them into another tool for your next hack to win an exclusive MathWorks branded Wireless YoYo Speaker! You can also claim a free MATLAB software license to get started.

Best Use of Defang
1 winner

Defang is a radically simpler way to Develop, Deploy, and Debug hackathon projects, letting you go from idea to a cloud-deployed application in less than 5 minutes! Build your project in any language, deploy to the cloud with a single command and iterate seamlessly. The Defang CLI is compatible with Linux, MacOS, and Windows, making it a great solution regardless of your operating system.

Download it today for free and save countless stress-filled hours of trying to get your application up and running on the cloud. Use Defang in your project this weekend and you’ll also qualify to win a Touch Screen iOT Sensor for you and each of your team members!

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 Terraform
1 winner

HashiCorp Terraform is an infrastructure as code (IaC) tool that makes building, deploying, and managing your projects even easier! Whether you’re working in the cloud or using local resources, Terraform can make managing and configuring your application simple and organized. From deploying Machine Learning models to spinning up virtual containers for your web applications, Terraform supports a wide array of cloud providers and services, taking the guesswork out of your next hackathon project. Dive into the documentation and discover all the ways Terraform can take the way you hack to the next level!

Terraform’s community edition is free to use with no credit card required! Utilize Terraform in your hackathon project this weekend for a chance to win wireless keyboards for you and each of your teammates!

Best Use of MATLAB
1 winner

MATLAB and Simulink are computational tools used at over 100,000 businesses, government and university sites in over 190 countries. Use MATLAB and/or Simulink exclusively or integrate them into another tool for your next hack to win an exclusive MathWorks branded Wireless YoYo Speaker! You can also claim a free MATLAB software license to get started.

Sauce Labs Hot Sauce Raffle
1 winner

Sauce Labs empowers you to develop, test, and deliver top-tier web and mobile apps quickly and efficiently. Their unified platform makes automated testing and error monitoring easy to do, enabling you to save time building your hackathon project! Let Sauce Labs help resolve any issues with your code so you can get back to building an award winning hack. Make sure your project is hackathon-tested by signing up for a Sauce Labs account!

To spice things up even more, we're running the Sauce Labs Hot Sauce naming raffle and selecting up to 4 individual winners at this event. To qualify come up with a cool hot sauce name and submit it to the Sauce Labs raffle form for a chance to win some awesome swag including a backpack, beanie, and a bottle of Sauce Labs hot sauce!

3x Finalist
3 winners

Razer Mic, Amazon Echo Show 5, BlackShark Keyboard
1 year subscription of NordVPN (for the best private browsing experience)
1 year of NordPass (secure password management)
1 year of Incogni (safeguard online privacy)

Best Beginner
1 winner

Logitech Speakers

Best Design
1 winner

Blue White Snowball Microphone
1 year subscription of Wolfram|One Personal Edition
1 year subscription to Wolfram|Alpha Pro

Entrepreneurial Award
1 winner

Razer Kraken Headset

Entrepreneurial Award Runner Up
1 winner

Anker Wireless Charger

Best Hardware Hack
1 winner

Razer Kraken Headset

Best Hardware Hack Runner Up
1 winner

Razer Kraken Headset

Best Entertainment Hack
1 winner

$25 Amazon Gift Card

Best Social Good Hack
1 winner

$25 Amazon Gift Card

Best Artificial Intelligence Hack
1 winner

$25 Amazon Gift Card

Best Environmental Hack
1 winner

$25 Amazon Gift Card

Most Innovative Hack
1 winner

$25 Amazon Gift Card

Most Creative Adobe Express Add-On
1 winner

Adobe Express is an AI-first, all-in-one content creation app that makes it fast, easy and fun to design and share videos, images, PDFs, flyers, TikToks, logos and more. Best of all, it’s free to get started.

Add-ons in Adobe Express are simply extensions and integrations that are built upon very powerful APIs. These APIs provide access to the user’s document, connections to third-party tools, and so much more. You can extend the functionality of Adobe Express using add-ons to unlock new capabilities and workflows.

For this hackathon, we want you to build a creative add-on for Adobe Express. Users are looking for add-ons that involve assets like stickers or icons, work with presentations and data visualization, and work in roles like marketing and e-commerce. Build an Adobe Express add-on this weekend for a chance to win a Wacom Wireless Drawing Tablet and JBL Go3 Mini Speaker for you and each member of your team!

*You can also submit to this prize category if you have a prototype idea for an add-on or have a partially completed add-on. As long as you’ve built with Adobe Express, we want to see your hack!

Devpost Achievements

Submitting to this hackathon could earn you:

Judges

Abhijeet Singh

Abhijeet Singh
Senior Consultant, KPMG Canada

Ana Lizarraga

Ana Lizarraga
Designer, Enactus SFU

Anna Tang

Anna Tang
DevOps Engineer, Telus

Armaan Bandali

Armaan Bandali
Software Developer, Transoft Solutions

Brian Le

Brian Le
Software Developer, Shopify

Brian Yan Muk

Brian Yan Muk
Product Management Lead, Apply Digital

Christopher Le

Christopher Le
CTO, Pax AI (YC S24)

Claudia Gomez

Claudia Gomez
Research Consultant, Magic Waste Management Solutions

Clement Halim

Clement Halim
BEV Systems Designer, Epicroc

Danny Kusnardi

Danny Kusnardi
Manager of MIS Project Manager, Fortinet

Devon Friend

Devon Friend
Systems Engineer, Kardium

Geoffrey Shmigelsky

Geoffrey Shmigelsky
CTO, OneCup AI

Jeevan Padda

Jeevan Padda
Senior Software Developer, Transoft Solutions

Jenny Ha

Jenny Ha
ERP Business Analyst, Kardium

Jon Andre Briones

Jon Andre Briones
Prev Web Developer, Fortinet

Jonathan Choi

Jonathan Choi
User Experience Designer, Safe Software

Jordan Mario Jutras

Jordan Mario Jutras
Associate Lawyer, McQuarrie Hunter LLP

Kiran Dhatt

Kiran Dhatt
Prev Co-founder & CEO, Ceco AI

Marvin Irwin

Marvin Irwin
Tech Lead, Genrait

Marzia Sager

Marzia Sager
Communications and Advancement Lead, PowerPlay Young Entrepreneurs

Melody Oh

Melody Oh
Software Developer, Felix Payment Systems

Oona Krieg

Oona Krieg
COO, Brave Technology Coop

Paul Miller

Paul Miller
Software Engineer, Arista Networks

Pete Murray

Pete Murray
Head of Engineering, EA

Philip Garabandic

Philip Garabandic
Security Engineer, Amazon

Sahejdeep Singh

Sahejdeep Singh
Relationship/Project Manager, Tandem Innovation Group

Saimir Sulaj

Saimir Sulaj
Co-Founder & CTO, UVX Inc.

Scott Lai

Scott Lai
Prev Software Developer. Amazon

Shariq Ahsan

Shariq Ahsan
Quantum Physicist, UBC & TRIUMF

Sheril Eda

Sheril Eda
Research/ Data Analyst, HEABC

Siddharth Gupta

Siddharth Gupta
Software Development Engineer II, AWS

Thomas Nakagawa

Thomas Nakagawa
Software Development Engineer II, Highspot

Tina Tran

Tina Tran
Business Analyst, Lululemon

Tommy Son

Tommy Son
Intermediate Software Developer, Global Relay

Vincent Chu

Vincent Chu
VP of Engineering, Visier

Vishali Murugesan

Vishali Murugesan
Senior Data Analyst, Macrohealth

Judging Criteria

  • General Criteria
    Be creative with your projects and make sure to showcase your skills in the best way possible! A good hackathon pushes hackers to try their best in their own way :)

Questions? Email the hackathon manager

Tell your friends

Hackathon sponsors

Title Sponsor
Gold Sponsors
Silver Sponsor
MLH

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