Hack This Fall began with a mindset of encouraging new hackers to build unique projects regardless of the tech or field; the only focus was to create something meaningful and enjoy building while also solving the shared struggles of our surroundings.
We hosted our first edition in 2020 which was an experiment as we were organizing a hackathon for the first time and it turned out to be a successful event. We received a great response from our community as we were joined by 500+ hackers from 170+ cities, who all ended up building 50+ projects. It was one of the first digital hackathons in the region during COVID times. To continue our mission and match the expectations of our community after season 1, we decided to start planning another edition.
Hack This Fall Season 2 was meant to exceed the digital hackathon experiences for our hacker community members and guess what, it went over the top. It was a 48 Hours Virtual Hackathon organized on Oct 22nd - Oct 24th, 2021. The hackathon experienced an outstanding attendance of 4500+ hackers joining us from 55+ countries across the globe which all ended up showcasing 320+ amazing ideas and project submissions.
Hack This Fall became an MLH member event, which means that Major League Hacking verified us as a high-quality event by evaluating the event’s progress in key areas such as sponsorship, marketing, and logistics. We also introduced our all-new tagline “Innovate For Good”. Hackers truly understood the value of our motto and showed their excellent piece of innovation and problem-solving skills.
Apart from having a great time hacking, our community got an opportunity to collaborate in so many meaningful ways. We use to have #HTFConnect hacker hangouts every week on our discord where we use to discuss various topics, share each other’s experiences and learn together. Such hacker connects, drives various valuable conversations which eventually helped our hackers to get more aware and understand things they didn’t know before.
One of the great things about Hack This Fall was its pre-event workshops, we ran over 45+ sessions on our Youtube on multiple domains and topics which could ultimately help hackers learn new technologies, build great ideas and share their solutions with the rest of the community. We covered subjects like Jamstack, Containers, Authentication, Blockchain, Azure, and so much more. With this, we wanted our hackers to be aware of all these before actually starting with the hackathon. And having these workshops way before the hackathon allowed them to give it some time and grasp it.
Hackers also had a lot of fun time participating in super cool mini-events we scheduled for them. This way, hackers get to take some time off from hacking and relax their minds to enjoy and have some chill. We did Hacker Hangouts to interact with other hackers participating, we also ran an MS Paint mini-event, where we followed along with Bob Ross himself. MLH ran a special Werewolf mini-event which was again an awesome one and lastly, we played Sketchful mini-event to draw and guess the same!
This year, we also initiated a new program named Hack This Fall Hackathon Evangelist. Evangelists are extended Hack This Fall team members who are passionate about Hackathons and Communities. These are the folks who actively spread awareness and encourage people to get involved in the hackathon space. Being a Hackathon Evangelist means that one is committed to bringing a change in their surrounding by helping others and contributing in a meaningful way. We onboarded over 100+ Evangelists and helped them add value to the community.
We encourage Inclusion and Diversity at the core of our community core and have various activities around the same to keep hackers engaged in a meaningful way. All in all, we wanted our hackers to not just participate but experience a hackathon in a true sense. And we managed to do that quite well. Hack This Fall is known for its experience and we want to make sure that people participate in a hackathon not just to win but to upskill, network, learn, build and share.
Lastly, would just want to conclude by mentioning that, Season 2 was such a blast and it leveled up the true hackathon digital experience for the hackers in the region. A huge shoutout to all the humans involved in making it memorable. We couldn’t have pulled it off so smoothly without the support from all our sponsors, thanks to each of them.
I can’t thank enough my outstanding team who selflessly worked together and brought the idea of running a successful digital hackathon to life. With that being said, please take a sip of chilled coke with a slice of a pizza while we prepare for you an all-new edition. Get ready to go Above & Beyond this year as we bring to you Hack This Fall 3.0 and that too in person! Head over to hackthisfall.tech to know more!
Happy Hacking! 🧡