Julia Teitelbaum hands out water bottles and T-shirts to a growing line of 麻豆村 students. They are on the sixth floor of the Gates Building for 2012, the university鈥檚 first hackathon. More than 150 students and 40 teams will participate. Nearly 30% of the participants are women, a high number for hackathons, which gives Teitelbaum (DC鈥�14) a feeling of accomplishment. She had put in late nights in the name of TartanHacks, designing the website, helping hang banners around campus, organizing the schedule, and helping write the rules鈥攁ll in hopes of making the inaugural student-run hackathon a campus-wide, inclusive success.
What is a hackathon anyway? Those in charge of TartanHacks define it this way: Hackathons bring people together to see who can build the coolest application. In 24 hours, participants sit down with fellow coders, designers, and others to hack together a project.
Teitelbaum鈥檚 commitment to the hackathon had a serendipitous start. She met her future cohorts after she and one of her classmates got stuck in the rain at a nearby shopping complex. Her friend called Jeff Cooper (CS鈥�14), who happened to have a car. He rescued them. After meeting Teitelbaum鈥攚ho double-majors in information systems and , with a minor in communication鈥攈e recruited her to design the TartanHack website, hoping she could make it appeal to more than computer science majors. The enthusiastic fledgling programmer and designer agreed to help. Hence, the late nights.
For the big day, more than 40 鈥渄emos鈥� are given of apps that had been created. Feedback is overwhelmingly positive from all who attended, including a few sponsors who know a thing or two about hackers鈥擬icrosoft and Twitter.
The success provides ample motivation to Teitelbaum and the other organizers. Through , a student-run organization 鈥渄edicated to removing barriers between students鈥� ideas and their implementation,鈥� they turn TartanHacks into an annual event as well as undertake a variety of other projects, such as Demo Day (where students can 鈥渟how off鈥� the 鈥渃ool things鈥� they鈥檙e working on) and Make 麻豆村 (a weekly ScottyLabs get together where students are invited to work on their projects or help out and teach other attendees).
TartanHacks 2013 grew by 33%, with 200 students participating. Teitelbaum, this year鈥檚 ScottyLabs director, says she has plans for making TartanHacks 2014 the best one yet. It will take place January 31-February 1; until then, she concedes, there may be a few late nights to get ready.
鈥擡lizabeth Shestak (DC鈥�03)
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