Illustration by Supanoba
Early next month, HackHarvard 2021 and ErgoHack II, will be held on the same weekend (October 8-10), bringing together some of the most talented programmers across the globe, showcasing their mastery of the upper boundaries of modern technology.
HackHarvard, regarded as one of the premier student hackathons in the world, is taking a hybrid approach consisting of both virtual and in-person events. This annual event will be the sixth such hackathon hosted by Harvard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The theme for this year’s HackHarvard is "Back from Scratch," aiming to build solutions for today's problems from the ground up. The mission for participants is to leverage software to "push for progress at the intersection between technology and society."
HackHarvard encourages college students from around the world to participate in this annual event, where aspiring software developers are provided a platform to showcase their creativity, skillset, and innovation.
The prizes for HackHarvard 2021 will soon be announced, but the main categories for this year's event are sustainability, social justice, education, and healthcare.
It is still not too late to register if you would like to compete against some of the most talented young developers from around the world.
Here’s the link to register for HackHarvard 2021:
https://hackharvardcollege.typeform.com/hh2021
On the same weekend of October 8th, ErgoHack II is being held virtually and is sponsored by the Ergo Platform.
Launched in 2019, Ergo is a relatively new blockchain platform, but has enjoyed rapid growth within the blockchain industry due to its moniker of being the most decentralized platform in the cryptocurrency space.
Founded by some of the first programmers at IOHK.IO that created the 3rd largest platform by market cap in the blockchain space today, Cardano, after Bitcoin and Ethereum, Ergo is currently one of the fastest-growing platforms in the blockchain industry.
Ergo was founded and is led by Alex Chepurnoy and Dmitry Meshkov. Chepurnoy was a co-founder of smartcontract.com (now Chainlink – yet another leading blockchain platform), a core developer at NXT, and one of the first employees at IOHK. The other co-founder of Ergo, Meshkov, has a Ph.D. in physics and was an R&D researcher at IOHK, focused on building a framework for blockchain prototyping. Charles Hoskinson, the founder of IOHK and Cardano, who earlier this week donated $20 million for a new Center for Formal Mathematics studies at Carnegie Mellon University, refers to Chepurnoy as his "favorite technologist" and has stated that Ergo is one of his favorite projects in the cryptocurrency space, deeming Ergo "the spiritual successor to Bitcoin."
Over 160 developers worldwide have already signed up to participate in Ergo's second hackathon, competing for 1st place on an innovative and leading blockchain platform.
Along with the prestige of winning a global hackathon, participants of ErgoHack II will be competing for awards valued at over US$9,000 and a fast-track opportunity to join the Ergo Team as a full-time programmer.
The stated theme for ErgoHack II is "Social Transformation," where developers will seek to build projects that contribute to the mission of creating a monetary system that empowers the average person - especially those who are at a financial disadvantage due to their socioeconomic standing.
The Adaverse team at tca.io will be covering HackHarvard 2021 and ErgoHack II over the coming weeks as each of these prestigious hackathons come to fruition, where participants aspire to build software that improves the lives of others, along with their own.
As a recent winner of HackHarvard stated, "Winning HackHarvard during my undergraduate years, transformed my life for the better. The opportunities that have been afforded me since winning have been dream-like. I will be eternally grateful to my fellow team members that helped us all win 1st place at a recent HackHarvard, and doubly so to those at Harvard that have hosted this event for so many years that made all this possible. I encourage any engineer out there with the will and determination to succeed to enter either hackathon. If not this year, for sure, next year. It changed my life for the better, I'm sure it'll have the same impact on future winners as well."
To those who are competing in either hackathon on the weekend of October 8th next month, if you would like to have your hackathon team featured in an upcoming article, message us on Twitter or email us at info@tca.io.