Project Launch: 3-6-23

Hack League is a friendly extracurricular academic competition. Student teams are challenged to create tools or products to address challenges or opportunities in their own communities. These products can be as simple as an informational poster board or as complex as a Python and SQLite based web application. The Hack League takes students through the product design process, teaching skills along the way. Students are mentored and judged throughout the competition by subject matter experts from industry, non profits, government and academia. Hack League is explicitly an inclusive competition, aimed at engaging students at all levels of computer science-from no experience to years of study. Students team up for a friendly competition to develop and present their unique approach to a meaningful problem or opportunity they have identified with data.

With pilot funding from World Connect, BetaNYC and CUNY Staff, faculty and students will design the competition structure, train and recruit program facilitators and mentors and run logistics for the pilot event at the Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC). Hack League introduces people who have not participated in computer science or local civic engagement to what is possible within each and helps them feel welcome and successful in both sectors. Hack League aims to create a pipeline of diverse industry professionals and public servants. We envision this happening through ongoing mentorships, internships and jobs that result from connections made in Hack League.  Finally we hope this expands to other community college campuses and potentially 4 year colleges as well. A successful model could also be shared with schools around the country and perhaps the world!