Earlier this year, the student-run organization TAMUhack held its seventh annual hackathon in collaboration with the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University.
With its beginning in 2014, TAMUhack has grown to become one of the largest annual hackathons held in Texas.
During the two-day event, students get the opportunity to network with each other and industry experts from major companies across the nation while also collaborating with other students who have different skill levels and backgrounds to complete interactive competitions.
This year, 125 teams representing 112 schools participated, which included teams from India, Brazil, Ireland, Germany, Canada and the United Kingdom. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the hackathon was held exclusively online.
In addition to the “build anything you want” prompt posed by TAMUhack, the students worked on various challenges presented by company sponsors, including American Airlines, who challenged students to help boost the customer travel experience using application programming interfaces.
Dell Technologies challenged students to provide a solution to a problem that they’ve seen and/or experienced in the past eight months as a result of the pandemic, which could make a positive impact on a majority of people working from home.
For TAMUhack co-presidents Maggie Pothugunta and Anthony Teo, they are proud of the way the community came out to participate and enjoy the event during these unprecedented times, and how students from around the world were able to connect and bring their ideas to life in a fun and safe virtual environment.