Cal Hacks 8.0 is here! The world's largest collegiate hackathon makes its return bringing together the brightest and most ambitious hackers, designers, and creators.
Join and build your heart out!
Requirements
- Submit your hack by 10/24 9AM PDT and make sure to add your teammates!
- Include a < 2 minute demo video and GitHub repository for any code to be considered.
- Videos longer than 3 minutes will not be judged.
- Reach out to team@calhacks.io for alternate code arrangements (e.g. proprietary code).
- Continuing projects and cross-posted submissions will not be accepted.
Prizes
First Place Prize
Apple iPad Air 64GB
Second Place Prize
Bose QuietComfort QC45
Third Place Prize
Apple AirPod Pros
Best Finance Hack
JBL FLIP 5 Bluetooth Speaker
Best Health Hack
JBL FLIP 5 Bluetooth Speaker
Best Hardware Hack
CanaKit Raspberry Pi 4 4GB Starter Pro Kit
Best Education Hack
$100 Amazon Gift Card
Best Beginner Hack
Hydro Flask 32 oz. Water Bottle
Eluvio Challenge - Best Application of Video NFTs on the Content Fabric
Our Cal Hacks challenge is to create the best application of Video NFTs on the Content Fabric using our open source APIs and optionally the Eluvio Media Wallet. All of our APIs and documentation are available on github.com/eluv-io. For a deeper dive on the Eluvio Blockchain see https://live.eluv.io/blockchain and https://live.eluv.io/blockchain#apis
Prizes & Amounts:
1st Place: Opportunity for a Summer Internship at Eluvio in Summer 2022 and a $750 Prize to be split by the team members
2nd place: $500 Prize to be split by the Team members
Read more at x.calhacks.io/eluvio_prize
Protocol Labs Challenge - Best use of IPFS or Filecoin
Project needs to use Filecoin, IPFS, or anything that builds on top of them (e.g., web3.storage, nft.storage, Estuary, Slate)
Prizes & Amounts: $1k in FIL to the winning team
Cockroach Labs Challenge - Best use of CockroachDB
Use CockroachDB in a creative way in the project.
Prizes & Amounts: $100 gift card to each member (4 members)
BlackRock Challenge - Financial Wellbeing
Come up with a tool that increases financial wellbeing, either broadly for a large population, or more narrowly for a specific target audience.
Prizes & Amounts: 1st place: $150 Amazon gift card + Blackrock swag, 2nd place: $75 Amazon gift card + Blackrock swag
Read more at x.calhacks.io/blackrock_prize
Uniswap - DeFi Innovation
Create an open source project that should be related to uniswap or DeFi and should be developed on Ethereum or EVM-based blockchains.
Prizes & Amounts:
1st place: $3.5k USD in UNI
2nd place: $1.5k USD in UNI
Read more at: x.calhacks.io/uniswap_prize
Uniswap - Social Impact
Create an open source project that should be related to uniswap or DeFi and should be developed on Ethereum or EVM-based blockchains.
Prizes & Amounts:
1st place: $3.5k USD in UNI
2nd place: $1.5k USD in UNI
Read more at: x.calhacks.io/uniswap_prize
The @ Company - Mobile Apps Post “The Social Dilemma”
Build the next generation of mobile apps that prioritize End-to-End Encryption, so only people/entities involved in the information exchange have access to the data, and there is no snooping, surveillance, or data storage of any sort without the data owner's consent.
Prizes & Amounts:
1st place: $1500
2nd place: $750 (2 second place winners)
Best E2E Encryption Solution: $250
Best Use of Platform: $250
ZARIOT - Encryption @ The Root of IoT Security
Design an app that addresses security end to end across the IoT ecosystem. The app will use the @platform to ensure dual authentication between the device and the application controlling the device. This can be any “device” or “thing” which may, or may not have a user interface. It will connect via the mobile infrastructure to an application environment that utilizes the collected data, or IoT connectivity in some other way. More info : https://e2e3athack.devpost.com/
Prizes & Amounts:
1st place: $1000
2nd place: $500
3rd place: $250
MLH - Best Domain Name from Domain.com
Register a .tech domain using Domain.com during the weekend. each team may submit one entry per person on the team. Each winning team member will receive a PowerSquare Qi wireless phone charger.
MLH - Best Use of Google Cloud
Build your hackathon project with a suite of secure storage, powerful compute, and integrated data analytics products provided by Google Cloud. See full list of products here: [g.co/cloud](http://g.co/cloud).
Each winning team member located in the US will receive a Google Cloud Swag Bag complete with a beanie, pillow, journal, socks and lanyards. International winners will receive a Google branded backpack.
MLH - Best Use of Cockroach DB
Build your hackathon project on CockroachDB's open source and indestructible SQL database. Utilize CockroachDB in your hack for a chance to win a 3D printing pen for each team member.
What's more, All US residents that submit CockroachDB enabled projects will receive a free t-shirt while supplies last!
MLH - Most Creative Use of Twilio
Twilio allows you to incorporate mobile messaging, phone calls and a ton of other awesome communication features right into your hackathon project using web service APIs. Are you building an e-commerce website and want to send text notifications or email confirmations once an order is completed? Or maybe your application needs to verify users based on their mobile numbers? Twilio makes all this possible and more. Build a hack that simplifies your life using any one of Twilio’s APIs for a chance to win a Twilio Swag Box and GameGo Console for you and each of your teammates!
Microsoft Cloud Challenge: Building for Social Good
A very broad topic, but we're excited to see what you come up with to empower people to achieve more for the good of society, whether it's for a small group, or the whole world.
Our prize for the challenge is:
- 1 year Xbox live ultimate for every team member
- 1year LinkedIn learning for every team member
- $250 in Azure credits for every team member to help you take you hack further
- $500 donation to a charity of your choice from our list of supported charities
The @ Company - Best E2E Encryption Solution
The @ Company - Best Use of @ Platform
The @ Company - Bonus Prize
Devpost Achievements
Submitting to this hackathon could earn you:
Judges
Cal Hacks Team
Shivay Lamba
Google Summer of Code Mentor MLH Top 50 2021
Sam Warach
NextStep HealthTech
Quinn Barry
Quinn is on the Investment Team at 8VC, focusing on seed, fintech/crypto, and enterprise software.
Syed Rafi Sifath Palal
Electrical and Electronics Engineer and a tech entrepreneur. His startup is also focusing on developing technology solution for human problems.
Jacob Wu
Vicky Feliren
AI Engineer at GDP Labs. Monash Alumni and ex-Jakarta Smart City
Madhan Rangaswamy
Seasoned Engineering leader and recent entrepreneur with more than 2 decades of launching products in IOT, Hardware, Software, PAAS and SAAS spaces
Lillian Seu
A T-cell immunologist with 10+ years in design of experiment, bioinformatics, drug development (early discovery to FIH clinical trials), and department coordinator for a national HIV diagnostic lab in Zambia (NIH Fogarty fellow 2011-2014).
Nicholas Walsh
Nick is a Senior Developer Advocate at Amazon Web Services, where he works to help create better services for developers building in the cloud.
Thibault Corens
Co-Founder & CTO at PRESSO where we make laundry 360X faster using robotics and AI
Gautam Tata
Spandana Govindgari
Spandana is Staff Payments Engineer at Facebook and has previously worked at Apple, Snapchat and Microsoft and also started her own VC-backed AR adtech startup, Hype.
Abhishek Shankar
Abhishek is a serial entrepreneur and CEO of Limerine, an AI company based out of New Jersey. Limerine's chat product Rambutan works as the missing bridge between internal and external communication through a universal chat platform.
Marisa Chan
Product Designer passionate about the start-up and developer tooling space currently @HashiCorp. On the side, I volunteer at ADPList and run a design community.
Albert Lie
Former Founding Engineer & Tech Lead @ Xendit (YC S15, Stripe for Southeast Asia)
Vilsi Jain
AI App developer Intern || Microsoft Azure Developer Community Organizer
Yaroslav Menshikov
Vitalii Vinogradov
I am a tech product manager experienced in innovative products. Launched one of the world's first B2B Cloud Face Recognition platform. Deliver the world's best AI products at NtechLab.
Jeson Lee
Co-founder at OpenChefs
Sergei Golitsyn
Senior Software Engineer with 7 YoE in building massively scalable systems (mostly using Java). My bread and butter are solving high-load challenges in distributed systems. I love creating products that customers love to use.
Thomas Zhang
2nd Full-Stack Software Engineer at Time by Ping, former CalHacks participant and UC Berkeley CS TA - holds industry certifications including A+, Network+, Security+, AWS Solutions Architect
Akanksha Singh
Manan Dey
Software Engineer at SAP
Oscar Pan
Passionate full-stack web developer for the past 15 years. Currently working at VaynerCommerce as Technical Lead bringing e-commerce experiences to life.
Kevin Tian
Founder, Bear Tech & Yeah Education
Anton Yakutovich
Pavel Plotnikov
Senior iOS Engineer with 15+ years experience in commercial software development
Janvi Talreja
Software Developer | Google Code In Mentor | Former DSC Lead
Sergii Zhuravel
I'm a big JS and React fan. I like to share my knowledge, so I conduct programming courses (JavaScript), write articles and participate in different events
Emil Bogomolov
Research engineer of the ADASE scientific group at Skoltech, graduate of the Department of System Analysis of the Moscow State University and MailRu Technosphere
Ekaterina Shcherbakova
Ekaterina Shcherbakova is a Product and Marketing specialist with over 10 years of both international and US experience.
Mohit Bhat
Blockchain and Full Stack Developer, GSoC'21, Summer Of Bitcoin'21, Certified Ethereum Developer
Danielle Jing
Lauren Iwata
John Oconnell
Technologist with love for innovation
Gen Ashley
Gen Ashley is the Founder of TECH(K)NOW - www.techknowday.com. She is an active leader in the Women in Tech space and leads several Tech Community Groups in London and beyond.
Randy Fortier
With over 10 years of software development experience after graduation, Randy Fortier has been a web developer, a mobile developer, and a graphics/robotics developer at various startups in both Canada and the US.
Shahed Latif
Technology partner @ Pricewaterhousecoopers focused on 5G, edge computing and cloud
Hatef Kasraei
Previous hacker currently working in fintech. DeFi and disruptive tech enthusiast.
Abel Mathew
I am an Auth0 Ambassador, Google Cloud Champion Innovator, Angel Hack Ambassador and actively contribute to communities. In addition, I have excelled in my skills as a technical blog author and have authored guest blogs on platforms like DigitalOcean.
Jeffrey Priebe
Founder, CTO & CPO at Brightflow.ai - seed-stage fintech startup democratizing finance for ecommerce SMBs (Brightflow AI is a Berkeley SkyDeck cohort accelerator company).
Prabhu Singh
Software developer, multi-hackathon finalist and community guy
Serge William Kadjo
Justin Zheng
JZ is the founder of Matrix, a company seeking to democratize ownership of entertainment brands.
Vivek Vinodh
Andrew Shao
Google
Judging Criteria
-
Application
Does the project have any feasible application in real life? Does it seem like something that someone could use or would actually have a benefit in the real world? -
Functionality/Quality
Is the project free of major bugs? Does it look appealing? The UI/UX doesn’t have to be absolutely perfect, but if we're having a hard time understanding the project by looking at it, there may be a problem. -
Creativity
Is this project unique and innovative? Is it a solution to a problem we have never seen before? A better way of doing something? -
Technical Complexity
The team should display a good level of knowledge in terms of the technology they’ve used in implementing their project.
Questions? Email the hackathon manager
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