Duke's 24-hour hackathon–HackDuke–took place this past weekend.
From Saturday morning to Sunday afternoon, students from across the nation collaborated with software engineers from tech companies and other members of the community to build proofs of concepts that aim to improve society, said senior Ashley Qian, the lead co-organizer of HackDuke 2014.
"[HackDuke] is the largest collegiate hackathon for social good in the nation," Qian said.
This weekend, CIEMAS–where the event was located–was filled with hundreds of students, who scrutinized their screens intently, brainstormed ideas and spoke with representatives from well-known software companies.
Teams of up to four students came together to address this year’s tracks of impact: inequality, education, health and wellness, and energy and the environment. Students of all skill levels were welcome to participate.
As a potential Computer Science major, freshman Richard Law felt that getting involved in HackDuke was a fun way to supplement his understanding of the field.
"It seems really cool; it's a pretty cool environment to be in," Law said, mentioning also the beginner-friendly nature of the hackathon.
Sophomore Georgia Tse had similar opinions to share as well.
“Even just walking around and seeing other people, I was sort of getting inspired, [knowing] this is real and something very tangible that people do," Tse said. "You create something in 24 hours. It’s crazy.”
One team, composed of freshmen Rob Martorano, Dev Dabke, Austin Gartside, and Brandon Ho, designed an app for the Poverty and Inequality Track.
“We ended up producing an app called ‘Daily Donor.’ Normally, you have advertisements on websites where the advertisers pay the developer money for hosting their ads. So we figured we’d take the ads and the money that was generated from the ads would go straight to the charity of your choice,” said Martorano.
Daily Donor makes the donation process more user-friendly by allowing people to donate to charities from the comfort of their homes, Dabke said, mentioning specifically that the ads are between 15 and 30 seconds long.
“So that was kind of our guiding philosophy: We wanted something simple and easy to use, but something that could actually have a positive effect on the world," he said.
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