1/9/2017 Corey Blumenthal, ECE ILLINOIS
Written by Corey Blumenthal, ECE ILLINOIS
ECE ILLINOIS students and faculty will take part in the fourth annual Hackathon this February 24 – 26, 2017. Students from around the country will gather at Illinois to participate in a marathon of coding challenges. The student-run hackathon, HackIllinois, offers students something unique among collegiate events–a focus on open source projects.
“Open source is a foundation that is built on collaborative software creation,” Andrew Kuznetsov told Chicago Inno. Kuznetsov is a junior studying computer science and HackIllinois organizer. “It’s daunting to many people because there’s a level of logistical complexity in coding an open source project because of the collaborative nature.”
Kuznetsov explained that open source projects require a degree of group work that most collegiate hackathons lack. Mozilla Firefox and Linux are both examples of open source projects that have helped progress technology.
“A lot of people in college want to give back to open source. They realize it is valuable for their resume and to give back,” Kuznetsov said. “But they’ve never done it.”
HackIllinois organizers are recruiting mentors and students to participate in this year’s hackathon. For more information regarding how to get involved email contact@illinois.org or check out HackIllinois on Facebook and Twitter.
HackIlinois was also featured on ChicagoInno in the article, HackIllinois, UIUC’s Student-Run Hackathon, Returns in 2017 With a Twist.