Led by a group of Black college women, this hackathon will be a safe, inclusive environment open to any college women studying technology. Students can choose to work on any project topic that excites them, but are encouraged to stick to the the overall theme: Social Good. Attendees will enhance their skills with mentors with professional experience by working through problem statements and attending workshops. They will also have several opportunities to learn more about culture and opportunities at sponsor companies. If you’re looking for exposure to a widely diverse group of college women in tech, you won’t want to miss this hackathon!

If you're interested in this event register here.

View our schedule of events during the week of here.

Eligibility

Self identifying women or non-binary students in college in team of 3-4 people. Minimum age for participation is 16. While the hackathon times are based in United States Eastern time (EST), participants can join from anywhere in the world if they have proper internet connection and don't mind the time difference!

Requirements

Black Wings Hacks Submission Requirements:

Projects must be submitted by 11AM EST February 7th, 2021
Each team must submit a video that is less than or equal to a 2 minute (1-2 minutes) video explaining the project to the judges. Participants' submission videos must be created the weekend of the hackathon.
Any additional documentation or designs. More than one file will need to be submitted in a ZIP file.
Link to any code written. If participants produce code, it must be available in some sort of public repository.
If it is a web or mobile application, include some way to view this virtually. Screenshots are acceptable. If you want to provide a recording of what should happen, include that as part of your video entry (within the 2 minutes given). Does not need to be fully functioning.
If judges are to run your application, make sure to include specific instructions on how they should do that and this should be compatible with all operating systems and browser types.
We encourage you to work on a problem having to do with Social Good (globally or in your community) in some format, but what you work on should be something you are passionate about.
Only submit one project, do not submit multiple.
You are not required to publish anything to an external store or website, besides Devpost. You are able to take your team’s product and commercialize it after the hackathon if you all wish.

Hackathon Sponsors

Prizes

$2,191 in prizes

First Place

Each team member will receive Bose Quiet Comfort Earbuds ($280 value) and a Black Wings Hacks Backpack ($14.45 value).

Second Place

Each team member will receive a $150 Visa Gift Card and a Black Wings Hacks Backpack.

Third Place

Each team member will receive a $75 Visa Gift Card and a Black Wings Hacks Backpack.

Best Domain Registered with Domain.com

Register a .tech, .space, or .online domain name 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 & Domain.com Backpack.

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. Each winning team member will receive a Google Branded Parkland Academy Backpack.

Best Hardware Hack Sponsored by Digi-Key (2)

Using your preferred hardware or hardware emulator, build a hack for your chance to win a Grove Beginner Kit, with Arduino Uno R3 included. We select two winning teams for this category. Each winning team member will receive a prize!

Best Use of CockroachDB

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 projects submitted that use CockroachDB will receive a free t-shirt!

Judges

RTC Black Wings
Black Wings

Product Manager
Xfinity Mobile - Comcast

Analytical Consultant
SAS Institute, Inc.

Senior Software Engineer
Visa Inc.

Software Engineer
Intuit

Bioinformatician
SickKids - Research Institute

Software Engineer
Booz Allen Hamilton

Software Engineer and Product Owner
Cisco

AI ML Specialist - Solutions Architect
Amazon Web Services

Global Financial Crimes Specialist
Bank of America

Software Engineer
Google

Software Engineer
Qualcomm

Solutions Architect
Red Hat

Software Developer
Redfin

Engineering Manager
Mark43

Software Engineer
Salesforce

Program Manager
Microsoft

Software Engineer
Google

Analytical Consultant
SAS Institute

Systems Engineer
SAS Institute

Software Engineer
Two Sigma

Product Manager, Mobile and Accessibility
Spotify

Software Engineer II
Microsoft

Manager, Test Operations, Starlink
SpaceX

Software Consultant
Manhattan and Associates

Software Engineer
Google

Software Developer
WealthSimple

Judging Criteria

Adherence to Theme
Our theme for this hackathon has to do with social good, so we hope that students will stick to this theme when creating their projects
Teamwork
It is expected that all students work together on the project, equally divide up project work and contribute
Documentation
Students are expected to clearly and effectively document their project process and solution. This should be part of the required documents
Learning
Students should come out of the hackathon having learned something new and should be able to demonstrate that new knowledge in their project
Completion
This category refers to all expected parts of the project being turned in and completed in entirety
Originality
Each group is expected to produce an original project, having been made from their own unique ideas