U of G Students Partner with Hackathon League to Launch GryphHacks

Posted on Tuesday, May 17th, 2022

Image of student working on computer in evening

With many extracurricular activities in limbo over the past year due to the global pandemic, a group of University of Guelph students brainstormed how they could help their peers get more hands-on experience before graduation.

Rithik Choudhary and Shaiza Hashmi are the co-founders and co-chairs of GryphHacks, a new 48-hour hackathon formed under the Guelph Coding Community student club. The hackathon runs from May 20-22 virtually and is aimed at helping students and youth to innovate, build new ideas, and collaborate virtually. The group is aiming for 200 participants in the inaugural year.

Artistic headshot of Rithik Choudhary“I wanted to see more tech-related extracurriculars at the University of Guelph and help my fellow peers gain the technical skills, networking connections, and portfolio projects to help land them an amazing job,” says Choudhary, a third-year software engineering student in the School of Computer Science (SoCS). “What better way to do that than to start a self-sustaining event filled with opportunities and prizes that will help U of G students for decades after I’ve graduated?”

GryphHacks is partnered with Major League Hacking (MLH), a student hackathon league based in New York. The organization’s focus is to enable weekend-long hacking competitions across North America by providing resources, such as promotion, templates and tutorials, judging support, prizes, and personnel support at in-person events, among others.

The event will begin with an opening ceremony on May 20 at 5:00 p.m. EDT with the official hacking beginning at 5:30, where teams of programmers come together to develop a programming output over the weekend. Submissions are due at 5:30 p.m. EDT on Sunday, May 22. In tandem with participants’ projects, there will be tutorials, games, workshops, a late-night radio show, and talks from former U of G computing students and industry experts, including an alumni panel with graduates who are now working for major tech companies such as Amazon, Google and Meta. 

GryphHacks involves many moving parts, says Hashmi, a computer science student in SoCS. Planning for the weekend-long event began in May 2021. Both Choudhary and Hashmi held executive positions within the Society of Computing and Information Sciences student group, which helped them gain connections with related U of G clubs and begin to implement their idea.

Ultimately, they say they want participants to build both skills and confidence. 

Image of Shaiza Hashmi smiling at camera standing on a wall in front of Lake Louise“Hackathons aren’t just made for winning; It's a weekend full of networking opportunities, chances to meet industry professionals and other like-minded students,” says Hashmi. “I hope that by the time May 22nd is over, our hackers will finish with confidence and be able to tell others what an amazing experience they had, and how they’re looking forward to the next opportunity!”

There are more than 20 U of G-based student organizers on the planning committee, ranging from design, finance and operations to sponsorship and marketing.

Dr. Daniel Gillis, associate professor in the School of Computer Science and advisor to the Hackathon organizers, noted the impact the GryphHacks will have for participants.

Headshot of Dr. Dan Gillis in front of colourful background.“The students, led by Shaiza and Rithik, have done an outstanding job organizing this event (and setting up a precedent for years to come). They have spent countless hours designing a weekend hackathon that will be engaging and fun, and will provide students with an experiential learning opportunity that allows them to practice everything they’ve learned in the classroom. I’m incredibly proud of the work they have done.”  

Teams will be tasked with creating a prototype, innovation, application, or other new product at the end of the hackathon. Prizes will be given to the top three teams overall, and teams can also register in three special categories for additional prizes: Best Discord bot, best hardware project and best UI/UX project. There will also be a People’s Choice award.

“It’s hard to predict what we can expect participants to produce because oftentimes the ideas are so ridiculously amazing and creative, it makes you think we really have no limits when it comes to our imagination, and lets you imagine how our world would be with these technologies actually implemented,” says Hashmi.

The Guelph-based event has caught the attention of global tech organizations: Google Cloud, Twilio, Domain.com, among others, who have committed to sponsorships which will support event prizes and also some of the software and tech required for the weekend.

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