What is a Hackathon?

The Black Futures Hackathon is held in partnership with Holberton Tulsa and Urban Coders Guild. Urban Coders Guild exists to provide computer science education access and opportunities to youth from historically underserved, underrepresented and otherwise under-resourced communities. We’re opening this to all Tulsa area middle school and high school students, to provide them an opportunity to experience the joy and excitement of a hackathon in a single day!

A combination of the words “hack” and “marathon,” a Hackathon is a competition centered around computer coding and software development. Hackathons generally consist of small teams racing against the clock to solve problems through software design. Teams are also racing against each other to create the best project according to judging criteria. This can be anything from literally hacking into a secure server, to creating a web application, a video game, or any other sort of coding challenge.

A hackathon is an opportunity to build community and work as a group to solve problems. While it is technically a competition between teams, people really win when they challenge themselves to think outside of the box and learn new things. Failure is a part of the learning process and makes us all stronger. A hackathon can be a fun way to encourage people to try something new, where (almost) anything goes!

A key part of the challenge is the time constraints, generally 24-72 hours, which makes sure participants can focus 100% on the task at hand without losing steam. It forces people to work quickly and efficiently while pushing the bounds of their creativity. The Black Futures Hackathon, however, will only run for 12 hours—doors open to doors closed—from 8am-8pm on February 20th.

The Black Futures Hackathon is our way of honoring past generations of Black tech pioneers while developing the next generation of Black tech creators and innovators. We want to ensure that all students have access to opportunities that give them access to technological education.

Registration is open until February 12, and you’ll want to sign up quick! The Black Futures Hackathon will have participants building and coding actual Raspberry-Pi robots to complete a task. It will be hands-on coding and engineering experience! We’ll provide breakfast, lunch, and a light dinner to all participants with snacks throughout the day. Parents will be able to come back in the evening to watch the groups presentations and attend the award/prize ceremony. We can’t wait to see you there!

Register now! There is no cost to attend, and registration is open to all Tulsa area middle and high school students. This hackathon will be hosted on the Holberton Tulsa campus.