Online hackathon for education tonight – $5K in cash prizes | Hacker News Reader

Online hackathon for education tonight – $5K in cash prizes

hackerleague.org

48 pointsbreck10 comments

A little tough to reason backwards from a win on this one. They haven't listed any judges: https://www.hackerleague.org/hackathons/virtual-hackathon-re...

The closest you can really find is that the prizes are from Lincoln Labs who seem more interested in politics. The about section mentions Romney, so probably republican. So if you have an education idea it should probably be more aimed toward private schools and Ivys and the like more than government programs since republicans are against government involvement in education in general.

It's important to know the judges in a hackathon. I've had judges kill project scores because they didn't know Google had announced Glass would have a GDK supporting native development, for example. Others who decided they loved games so only games could win, etc..

Great question. That was a slight oversight on my part, not realizing the importance of listing judges to a hackathon. I just updated the list and we'll publish a final list of judges tomorrow. Because this is an online hackathon, we will have more judges than your typical in person event. The judges right now are mostly startup folks and teachers.

Although Lincoln Labs is the sponsor, the hackathon is nonpartisan. Organizers are a mix of Republicans, Democrats and Independents.

That research seems reasonable, lnanek, but I'd like to encourage anyone interested in education technology to ignore it. There is absolutely massive potential to make a difference here, and it's mostly not with improving private schools.

If anyone is trying to think of ideas, let me re-post a great link that was on HN last week: http://www.gwern.net/Spaced%20repetition

Sound a little cynical Lance. I'm not a Republican (or Democrat) but I think they just don't like spending tax payer money on "big government" projects. So, if a submission in such a hack-o-thon helped students, without requiring a lot of infrastructure, or govt investment, you might hit the right formula. Of course, STEM related might be necessary too.

You don't host hackathons on weendays! just saying.

We are calling this a "moonlight" hackathon. :) . Some folks want to participate in a hackathon but can't/prefer not to give up their weekends. So if you ever wanted to participate in a Hackathon but not give up your Saturday and Sunday, now's your chance!

Or the unemployed hackathon.

"tonight" is a little short notice. I love the idea, but many excellent people will not be able to plan for this

I've added Bunyad[0] to this, looking for an experienced Rails dev to lead the development. If you can't make it to this hackathon, we'd still be around (https://github.com/Bunyad/bunyad) [0] https://www.hackerleague.org/hackathons/virtual-hackathon-re...

My thoughts might provide some ideas: http://www.collegeanswerz.com/rethinking-education

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