BostonHacks is Boston University's top hackathon. For 24 hours on October 31 to November 1, 500 students will come to Boston University, form teams around a problem or idea, and collaboratively code a unique solution from scratch. Imagine and create the most impressive hacks during the weekend!

Hackathon Sponsors

Prizes

$17,328 in prizes

First Place Prize

Secret prize ($2000 cash value) - A trip to Disney!
and Dell Tablets

Second Place Prize

Secret! ($1800 cash value) - Hoverboards!

Third Place Prize

Secret! ($1600 cash value) - 200 Chipotle Burritos

Epic Sponsor Hack

$100 Newegg.com gift card for each team member

Best Microsoft Hack

Microsoft Surface Pro 3 tablets for each team member

Twilio Sponsor Prize

Full body sleeping bags for all team members

Kleiner Perkins Caulfield Byers Sponsored Prize

Automatic Interview for the KPCB Fellows program

Top 3 Wolfram Hacks

One year of Wolfram Programming Cloud Developer Level and Wolfram Mathematica. Best Wolfram Hack also receives $300 cash

Top 20 Wolfram Hacks

One Year of Wolfram Alpha Pro

Best HP HavenOnDemand Hack (2)

GoPro and LittleBits Cloud kit for each team member

1517 Sponsor Prize (2)

$1k grant, plus mentorship for developing hack past hackathon

GE Sponsor Prize

The Greatest Impact Hack: The awarded project will be the one that has the highest potential for making a positive impact on the world.
This winning team will each receive a GE Light Up Charging Cable White with Blue Light.

MITRE Sponsor Prize

Syma X5C drone and MITRE jacket (1 per person) for best project in the public interest

Best use of AWS

Each member of the winning team that uses AWS will win a personal 1TB hard drive.

Domain.com Domain Name contest

Domain.com Swag Bags for the best domain name

Capital One Sponsor Prize

$250 Amazon Gift Card & T-Shirts

Raffled Prize

The last prize out of our 4 prizes to choose from - Trip to any tech conference or hackathon in North America

Honorable Mention

5lb Chocolate Bars

Devpost Achievements

Submitting to this hackathon could earn you:

Judges

Wes Moran

Wes Moran
Wikimedia

Doug Barron

Doug Barron
HubSpot, Vice President--Applications

Mark Crovella

Mark Crovella
Professor of Computer Science, Boston University

Michael Lahens

Michael Lahens
Intralinks, Senior UX Designer

Mike Chapman

Mike Chapman
Intralinks, Senior Program Manager

Andrew Barba

Andrew Barba
Tablelist, Engineering Lead

Matt Pfahl

Matt Pfahl
Software Engineering Manager, Hitachi Data Systems

Tabor Wells

Tabor Wells
Wanderu, Inc. VP Engineering

Slater Victoroff

Slater Victoroff
CEO, Indico

Judging Criteria

  • Technical Difficulty
    Is the hack technically interesting or difficult? Is it just some lipstick on an API, or were there real technical challenges to surmount? This is the most important criterion that a hack should be judged upon.
  • Originality
    Is the hack more than just another generic social/mobile/local app? Does it do something entirely novel, or at least take a fresh approach to an old problem?
  • Polish
    Is the hack usable in its current state? Is the user experience smooth? Does everything appear to work? Is it well designed?
  • Usefulness
    Is the hack practical? Is it something people would actually use? Does it fulfill a real need people have?
  • Pitch
    How well was the project presented? Did it make the hack more compelling? Did it give a good idea of its purpose?

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