It’s Saturday evening. The science center is lit with fluorescent lights and humming with quiet energy. To my left stands table after table of tech booths, manned by caffeinated recruiters and filled to the brim with branded memorabilia. To my right are heaping boxes of ‘Noch’s, platters of Kong, and tubs of JP Licks.
And all around me, in every room and against every crevice, coders are sprawled, plugged in, and tapping relentlessly away at their keyboards, the electric glow of their MacBook screens reflected upon their intent faces.
Welcome to HackHarvard
The emergence of hackathons at college campuses across the country is a relatively new phenomenon. The first documented hackathon was held in 1999-—the first hackathon at Harvard, in 2015. Within a span of less than two decades, a niche has opened up in the community for these events, which strive to promote a culture of inclusivity and innovation within the field of computer science.
Hackathons are better characterized as fun-filled weekends for tech enthusiasts to build something new, rather than professional or academic working spaces for serious ventures. They typically hold more appeal for novices than experienced coders. After participating in their fair share of hackathons, computer science veterans usually develop the work ethic to do projects on their own time, and they often plan hackathons rather than attend them.
Nevertheless, the benefits of both hosting and participating in hackathons are numerous. They can attract new talent to the field by creating fun opportunities to code, provide veterans with chances to give back or hone existing skills, and foster spaces in which coders can collaborate with one another in risk-free environments. They can build stronger communities, allow tech companies to recruit qualified candidates in exchange for event sponsorships, and offer social outlets for technical students. Most importantly, they can get hackathon participants excited about pursuing futures in CS. And with that excitement comes the ever-alluring possibility of one day following in the footsteps of Bill, Mark, Elon, and Sergey; of coding something that matters; of changing the world.
MOVE FAST AND BREAK THINGS
So what exactly are hackathons, anyway? “Basically, you have 36 hours to get a bunch of talented people together and make something,” explained Patrick H. Pan ‘18, who recently attended YHack 2015 at Yale. “A bunch of kids get together, don’t sleep, and then show off what they made. It’s a celebration of the culture.”
Due to limitations in time and feasibility, participants are challenged to think outside the box. Besides the 24-48 hour deadline, there is an implicit rule that you cannot build on existing projects. “You’re supposed to write all the code for something during a hackathon, so you can’t really come in with something half-done,” said Anson H. Kahng ’16. “But you can definitely come in with an idea.”
This year Kahng was one of the co-coordinators of HackHarvard, Harvard’s inaugural hackathon. “Hackathons are very quick and dirty,” he explained. “You can often get something together quickly, pulling a lot of shortcuts along the way, but then you can go back and smooth out the edges.” He added that the frenetic energy levels are “probably exacerbated by the fact that they’re playing [electronic dance music] the whole time.”
Indeed, the environment of a hackathon is typically youthful, fast-paced, and highly energetic. It’s stocked with calories, caffeine, techies, and technology and culminates in a showcase of finished projects at the end of the weekend. “You don’t do it when you’re old because it gets less fun,” said Pan. “People generally don’t sleep, and they’re clearly very passionate about the products they’re working on.”
IMPACT
Hacking within the CS community today focuses primarily on creating solutions to existing problems or disrupting established spaces with new innovations. “At the end of the day, hacking is not about how well you code,” said iOS app developer Joshua A. Meier ’18. “It’s about creating something that people care about.”
Given the time and scope limitations of traditional hackathons, however, questions of impact often arise. After all, in the grand scheme of things, how influential can a 48-hour-long hackathon really be?
Hillary J. Do ’17 attended YHacks 2014 last fall, and she described the weekend as a “good time to work on projects that I wouldn’t have had time for during the semester.” Do coded an iOS app with her hackathon team while she was there, learning an entirely new coding language in the process—a skill that stayed with her long after the end of the event. Hackathon enthusiast Timothy H.C. Tamm ’18 agreed that there is plenty of potential to learn: “Even if you drop the project after a hackathon, you keep the knowledge.”
Moreover, hackathons provide opportunities to explore new technologies. Because events are typically sponsored by corporations, tech companies often bring in new products and cutting-edge hardware for talented CS students to try out. Given a weekend to play with the newest virtual reality headset, Bluetooth-operated gadget, or remote-controlled drone, some students choose to integrate the hardware into their projects. These students develop new software to interact with the technology. According to Kahng, they “will form new paths from these technologies—and win prizes in the process.”
While some hackathon attendees described the benefits of the events, others felt they were not as productive as possible. “If I wanted to work on a project, I would just work on it. I don’t need a hackathon to do that,” said Jared R. Pochtar ‘17, a former software engineering intern at Dropbox. Like Pochtar, Meier also expressed a preference for working on longer-term projects in a less frenetic environment, adding that “[Hackathons] are more about making that one little tweak on a new app than coming up with something original.”
According to CS concentrator Gregory M. Foster ‘17, however, there are other benefits to attending hackathons. “The chance to see computer science friends from other schools and internships can be appealing, especially if your social circles are mostly computer science.” Meier also emphasized the role of camaraderie and fun in the field. “Life isn’t just about building innovative things; it’s also about enjoying the process. Hackathons have a lot of energy and they’re really good at building community, and I have friends who got really into CS after attending them.”
PROBLEMS IN HACKER CULTURE
Some students mentioned that they wanted to follow in the footsteps of high-profile alumni like Mark Zuckerberg, who coded Facebook from his Kirkland dorm room. “Hacker culture now follows that American dream of running your own company and changing the world,” said Roger M. Zurawicki ‘16, a former member of HackHarvard who is currently taking a semester off to intern at a startup.
With an influx of venture capital money available in Silicon Valley, tech projects now have enormous potential for impact. According to Tamm, the massive success of companies like Snapchat has instilled a certain mercenary mindset into many tech enthusiasts—one in which monetary concerns sometimes dwarf others.
“Quite often, with a new idea or an app or project, you’ll often hear the words, ‘How do I monetize this? How do I make money out of this?’ … A lot of genuinely cool projects are abandoned because they’re not profitable,” said Tamm.
Pan adds that “a lot of it also comes back to the ego-drivenness of it, because CS is filled with a lot of really competitive guys. Everyone has testosterone; it just depends on whether you’re putting it into football or hackathons.” Foster agrees with Pan’s sentiment, stating that although the over-competitiveness of the CS community is implicit, it’s well understood. While competition can be helpful in driving innovation, too much of it can contribute to a toxic culture that both intensifies the pressure to achieve success and alienates coders from one another.
The issue of inclusivity within hackathons also exists within the CS community at large, particularly in regard to the gaping gender disparity in tech. Although the CS community at Harvard is only about 30 percent female, Harvard still has some of the best-represented numbers of women in computer science compared to other top institutions.
According to Tamm, “If you go to a hackathon, there’s nothing that screams, ‘this is a male event!’ The hacker culture itself is very accepting and very forthcoming, but over the past half decade or so not a lot of women have gone into CS.” However, Harvard seems to be actively taking steps to reverse that trend.Its initiatives with Women in Computer Science and CS50 strive to create an inclusive environment for those interested in CS, regardless of their backgrounds or previous coding experience.
Pochtar argues that despite its problems, the CS community is well-intentioned and self-aware. “It’s really easy to see that the kinds of things that people complain about within the tech community. We want to be more friendly, social, inclusive. It’s never been perfect; nothing ever is. But we are trying.” Pochtar adds that he believes the administration is doing a good job in getting more students interested in the field. “I saw a real change from freshman year. There are a lot more people in CS now than there were even a few years ago.”
Kahng agrees with Pochtar’s sentiment, commenting positively on the uptick in interest in the field. “The community is definitely growing; there are more concentrators every year—especially after Steve Ballmer’s gift to the CS department.” The former Microsoft CEO’s generous donation to Harvard is estimated to be around $60 million for 12 professorships, which would increase the number of computer science faculty members by 50 percent.
As the community expands, students from all walks of life are bringing new perspectives to the table. That diversification is starting to counteract some of the perceived problems in the field. According to Kahng, students who are invested in the community are optimistic about its future. “People are getting really excited about CS.”
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I arrived at HackHarvard at 8 p.m. on a Saturday night, and it was 8 a.m. the next morning when I finally left the Science Center. Walking outside, I watched rays of sunshine stream through the Science Center Plaza on a gorgeous autumn morning. It was the kind of day that makes you want to abandon all your responsibilities just for the chance to sit outside, to gaze at the clouds. To breathe.
And yet, I was amazed that the coders were still inside, unfazed by those first rays of morning light. Wide awake, plenty alert, and still tirelessly working, they stayed true to their craft, their fingers continuing to fly across their keyboards, coding their visions into life.
Image Source: Youtube/Tech Talk