Where are the Steve Jobs, the Bill Gates and the Mark Zuckerbergs of the next generation? You might want to check out the giant hackathon at Princeton University’s Friend Center this weekend.
More than 600 students from over 80 universities will descend on the Princeton campus this Friday through Sunday to experiment with cutting edge technology and participate in HackPrinceton, a collaborative and competitive software and hardware creation marathon.
“Student hackers are the CTOs, founders, and innovators of tomorrow,” stated Mike Swift, co-founder of Major League Hacking, the official student hackathon league, which supports this event and more than 150 others in North America and Europe every year. “These students are already making amazing projects now. Imagine what they will be doing in a few years.”
Sponsored by the Princeton University Entrepreneurship Club, the Electrical Engineering Department, the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, the Computer Science Department, the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department, the Princeton Keller Center, the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students, and Major League Hacking, the Princeton hackathon will feature 36 hours of guest speakers and many workshops for students of all levels of expertise on such subjects as web and mobile development, machine learning, backend design, cloud content management, and more.
Major League Hacking’s lead sponsors, Dell and Intel, are supporting this event by providing up-to-date tech instruments to build on, like XPS laptops, Inspiron 2-in-1s, and Alienware gaming consoles, monitors, and tablets.
“We are thrilled to provide an ongoing platform for developers to explore the limits of their imagination, laying the foundation for continued ground-breaking achievement,” stated Liz Mathews, executive director of Corporate Brand and Purpose at Dell.
“HackPrinceton has historically spawned some of the most impressive hardware projects around,” Mr. Swift added. “Not only do they take advantage of the full Major League hardware lab (Oculus Rift, Alienware, Leap Motion, Intel Edison, Dell, etc), they also work with the University to provide hackers access to a full engineering laboratory.”