owengretzinger/mlh-top-hackers-2020-2023 huggingface dataset:
Sumaiya Tabassum

Sumaiya completed her first degree at City College, CUNY in Psychology with a double major in English. While pursuing her third degree in Computer Science at Queens College, CUNY, she found the easiest way to get more exposure to others in her major was through joining a club and learning about available opportunities from students. She joined the Association for Computing Machinery and along with three other board members, soon helped re-open the Women-in-Tech club at her school. There, she served as the secretary of the club where she learned about MLH and volunteered with the club to organize their first Local Hack Day.  That same year, a friend kept encouraging her to go to this thing called a "hackathon" and she eventually caved and attended.

For Sumaiya, being in the hacker community allowed her to see the potential career paths related to her degree. Most importantly, the hacker community and hackathons have inspired her to apply what she is learning to her own community in Queens.

Working as both director and executive director for multiple hackathons such as HackAttack and TechTogether NY, Sumaiya grew a lot as a leader. She learned how to increase her patience, plan better budgets, and negotiate with sponsors to meet their hackathon’s financial goals. She also improved her communication and marketing skills while reaching out to potential hackers, volunteers, and others interested in getting involved. These skills transferred over to her career goals as well. She now uses these skills to encourage others within her community to take on organizing events of their own. Outside of hackathons, Sumaiya has led many workshops (Localhost and some of her own) as well as mentored hackers. Having graduated with her third degree, Sumaiya is currently working as an adjunct lecturer at Brooklyn College, CUNY.

Her favorite project was from TechTogether Spring 2018 where she worked with her friends on Look-Listen-Learn. The project focused on connecting individuals to resources ranging from free online therapy to food banks to shelters in order to better the user’s mental health. She enjoyed the project because her time had a short time frame to collect the resources to promote mental health while working with a variety of technologies like Javascript, HTML/CSS with Bootstrap, and APIs to make their application work.
Maksim Diakov

Maksim first got in touch with the Russian community at Junction in Helsinki, Finland, a place quite popular among Russian-speaking hackers. At the event, he met MLH representatives who talked about all of the other hackathons around the world. This was a turning point in his life because as he continued to travel to different countries for hackathons, a small sub-community of Russian hackers started to grow. As it started to develop, Maksim felt something special around his friends and him.

Maksim began developing a club called HSE Hackers at his university with his friend and future co-founder, Alexander Prosolkin. The club traveled to hackathons, including HackUPC in Barcelona where Maksim met Aleksandr Malyshev, his third co-founder.

In 2018, Maksim founded Russian Hackers LLC with Alexander Prosolkin and Aleksandr Malyshev. The organization helps to share hackathons in Russia and all over the world to empower Russian hackers to participate in events and the future of the tech industry. Working with more than 4,000 hackers, Maksim and his team are working to reshape technology as well as host their own, Hack.Moscow.

In addition to this, Maksim works to empower hackers through various initiatives such as raising the value of hackathons within the academic sphere, advising young hackers, encouraging participants to organize their own hackathons (resulting in 7 Local Hack Days in 2019), helping more international hackers to participate in Russian hackathons, and speaking out about the power of hackathons to corporate companies and universities.

Maksim credits hackathons with a lot of personal growth. His favorite project was created at HackUPC in 2018. He made Whale Protection, an application that helped to detect a person in a poor psychological condition (with the intentions of self-harm, deep depression, etc) based on their social media activity. The app goes so far as to connect individuals with professionals who will help them to overcome their condition or call a special service to the location transmitted by the app. At the time that his team and he created it, there was a string of suicides among young people in Eastern Europe, so the theme had already caught the public eye. The project was very meaningful to his team and was Maksim’s first hackathon victory that not only helped him to learn new things like frontend basics but empowered him to develop as a programmer.
Emily Huang

Emily first joined the hacker community when she switched her major from mechanical engineering to computer science. She didn't know anyone in her major, but she was yearning to connect with others and learn about the possibilities of her new major.

Emily felt inspired by the overwhelming amount of support and inspiration she found within the hacker community, especially when building her project at the TwitchCon Hackathon. She knew she wanted to have the same impact on others and was motivated to take up an opportunity to help her immediate community of women and fellow hackers by organizing Rose Hack, the first women-centric hackathon in the Inland Empire area of California. Her team was comprised of smart and creative women she had met.

The experience of organizing Rose Hack opened up Emily’s eyes to what a community could really do for those who need that sense of belonging to find their identity as a hacker. From the hackathon alone, she was able to hear firsthand how meaningful it was to attendees to feel seen and acknowledged, especially when they won prizes. It was like seeing a group of students turn into real hackers overnight, not because of their wins but because of their newfound confidence.

Organizing a 24-hour hackathon in less than a year helped her land a job as a Program Manager at Microsoft. Organizing Rosehacks built her leadership skills, and taught her how to manage projects with different moving parts.

Her favorite project she ever made was a sentiment analyzer using the Twitch chat. The hackathon took place at TwitchCon where all the projects created were related to Twitch. This project was an intersection of two things Emily is passionate about: gaming and streaming culture.
Michael Cao

In his senior year of high school, Michael was told about a hackathon at a nearby school, HackNA. Having piqued his interests, Michael decided to see what a hackathon was like. While his team of four did not end up winning with their Flappy Bird clone, Michael knew that he had found something special.

When Michael started school at Penn State University, he sought out HackPSU. At his first HackPSU, he won a sponsor prize. He later joined the organizing team. Ever since, he has been an active and passionate hacker in the community. He has attended hackathons around the country like Bitcamp, PennApps as well as helped to run his own school’s HackPSU.

Before hackathons, Michael felt a lack of motivation to code since the only extracurricular programming experience he had was programming and designing robot control systems. Engaging with the hacking community helped Michael see there were many different ways to utilize hardware and software to impact the world.

Since joining the hacker community, his experience as an event organizer helped him in his role as Co-Executive Director of HAX, a nonprofit aiming to help underrepresented minorities receive programming and computer science education.

His favorite project he’s made is Image2Haiku. Based on the idea that an image is worth a thousand words, they came up with the concept of a website where an uploaded image is converted into a haiku. Utilizing Google, AccuWeather, Clarifai, and other APIs, he and his team scraped location, weather, and mood data from the uploaded image and fed that data into a word engine to generate the His team won the AccuWeather sponsor prize and demoed the project on the AccuWeather podcast.
Isabel Abonitalla

Isabel (Isa) joined the hacker community unwittingly. Having only recently discovered her passion for technology through a data science internship at Columbia University Medical Center the summer after graduating high school, Isa struggled to find avenues for her to learn and grow as a developer. She stumbled upon hackathons through her school's career development program and quickly fell in love with the community and all it had to offer. Since then, Isa has spent many a weekend working on hackathon projects.

Isa spends her time working to empower women and disadvantaged minorities in the tech field. She served as a #BUILTBYGIRLS ambassador, an active member of Rewriting the Code and Women in Technology New York, and is the Director of Internal Affairs & Operations at HAX, a nonprofit aiming to globalize computer science education through hackathons. She is also the VP of the Open Source Club, which focuses not only on the promotion of open-source software but also to prepare students for careers in CS and promote coding accessibility. She is passionate about OSC because of its potential to foster a community of like-minded programmers and provide them with a safe place to learn and grow.

Her favorite project was from her second hackathon, Hack: Maternal Mortality & Morbidity Code-a-thon in January of 2019. Her team created MamaCare, a cross-platform mobile app that educates pregnant & post-partum women on risk factors, tracks symptoms through smart devices, and calls physician if symptoms surpass healthy thresholds. This project allowed her to combine her skills in technology and her experience in biomedicine. All of Isa's projects have focused on having a positive impact on the community because she believes that projects should be for the social good and have a deeper meaning.

Isa studies computer science with a concentration in bioinformatics and hopes to work in the intersection of biomedicine and data science to improve patient outcomes with extensive and well-communicated information.
Brandon Barker

Brandon started coding in middle school, learning with the help of people on Internet Relay Chat (Slack before Slack existed). While entertaining, this method of learning was isolating. Then in his freshman year of high school, a friend insisted he go with him to a hackathon. They went to HackBCA. There, Brandon experienced such a strong community that he was inspired to create his own hackathon, STEMHacks, which was Pennsylvania's first-ever high school-only hackathon.

These hackathons motivated him to help continue building a hacker community so others could experience the same feelings of connection. While most events are driven by the need to network, the sheer level of passion and creativity at hackathons makes it incomparable. Many of his friends today are the very same people he met at events like HackWCU, PennApps, HackBCA, and many others.

Brandon attributes much of his growth in his extroversion and confidence to his experiences at hackathons. He says, “With an open environment where learning is ok and failure is taken with a smile, hackathons have allowed me to become a better engineer than any internship or schooling could have provided.”

His favorite project he ever built was Elderlyf, a self-guiding walker he built for his grandfather who had recently gone blind from a spinal injury. The walker allowed his grandfather to regain some of his independence and navigate spaces without external intervention. The walker is capable of guidance, path correction, and feedback. Hackathons have not only helped Brandon secure several internships since high school but also define the direction he wants to go for his life. His love of health tech that he discovered at hackathons have inspired Brandon to create projects that impact the wellness of people’s daily lives, such as developing prosthetic arms and accessible eye exams.
Justina Chua

As a high school senior, Justina struggled to find classmates at her school who shared her passion for programming. When she started her internship at State Farm, Justina wanted to find other communities passionate about software development. That’s how she stumbled upon her first hackathon, Windy City Hacks.

Despite Windy being the first hackathon for most of her all-female team, they were determined to complete a minimum viable product of their app Habit@, which allowed users to track sustainable habits and see their environmental impact. Many sleepless hours later, they pitched their project to the founder of Hack Club and won best overall at Windy Hacks.

Justina works to advocate for equitable computer science education to bridge the gender gap in the tech industry. She is actively involved in all-female and non-binary communities as a Stanford she++ fellow, GirlCon organizer, NCWIT awardee, #BUILTBYGIRLS advisee, and TechTogether Boston ambassador. She is also the Congressional App challenge winner. In addition to this, she is also the founder and executive director of HAX, a non-profit helping students organize hackathons through mentorship.

Justina intends to major in computer science in the fall when she begins college. She loves the creative medium through which she can build anything and solve problems.

Her favorite hackathon project is from Technica where her team and she worked on Secure the Bread, a web and iOS app that aimed to combat food insecurity and food waste by connecting local restaurants with leftovers to communities in need. They pushed themselves beyond their comfort zones by implementing APIs for the first time and coded in Swift. This was a topic the team was very passionate about as they have witnessed first-hand food insecurity in their respective cities and amongst their friends. Justina cannot wait until she is in college to continue learning how to code and help communities with the solutions she creates.
Olivia Li

Olivia has always considered herself a builder. From building mini rockets and a ukulele from scratch to making her own tattoo gun and using it on herself, she has pretty much been a  hacker since day one. It wasn’t until her friends convinced her to apply for her first hackathon that she got hooked and she joined the world of hackers.

Prior to joining the hacker community, Olivia wanted to be a researcher. This all changed after Hack the North 2017 where she realized that software was more interesting to her and she switched to computer science from biology. The community has brought her many friends who have helped her to grow as a coder and some of whom she will be working with on BioPeels this summer in California. Biopeels is a tech startup developing biocompatible and biodegradable packaging to increase the shelf-life of fresh produce. This product received funding and is collaborating with Sobeys, Canada’s second-largest food retailer, to develop green packaging. This is in line with Olivia’s goal of becoming a tech entrepreneur, incorporating the skills she has learned through the hacker community.

Hackathons not only taught Olivia a plethora of tools and frameworks, but they also taught her how to dream big. She says, “After seeing insane hackathon projects that were completed in a mere 36 hours... I’ve come to the conclusion that as long as it doesn’t break the laws of physics, it’s doable.”

Her favorite project was GluClose which was an intersection between her interests in software and biology. At PennApps XVIII, her team created an emergency diabetic glucometer which, instead of using blood to detect blood glucose levels, used a non-invasive method to measure blood glucose levels through saliva. The system used electricity-generating mud bacteria that created a voltage proportional to the amount of sugar it ate. The more sugar it ate, the more electricity was produced and measured. The project as a whole included the biology aspect, the hardware component, and a mobile app for viewing results which reflected the various talents of the team.
Nathan Dimmer

Nathan was first exposed to hackathons at GrizzHacks 3. An eye-opening experience, Nathan saw the practical applications of code and skills that he had learned in the classroom. He loved the environment because instead of learning in a classroom, he could make whatever he wanted. Programming had become applicable to real-world issues, rather than unrealistic practice assignments. The day GrizzHacks ended, Nathan found himself already looking for the next event he could attend and he’s been hacking ever since.

Hackathons have helped Nathan in many ways. They have helped him identify and break down complex problems under time pressure, which has, in turn, made him a better developer. He has gotten better at identifying irregularities and weird quirks in code. Hackathons have truly brightened Nathan’s high school experience and inspired him to help others find the amazing community he stumbled upon.

Nathan organized and ran a Local Hack Day at his local library. He wanted to share the positive experiences that he’s had at hackathons with other local students. At his Local Hack Day, 25 middle and high school students got to experience the exhilaration that comes from a hackathon and making a successful product in only a few hours. When they were demoing at the end of the day, he was amazed to see all of the new things that people tried. From developing their first app, making an Alexa skill, or trying a new framework, the hackers were given an opportunity to learn at their own pace in a safe and supportive environment. When he asked at the end who wanted to go to more hackathons, almost everyone raised their hand.

His favorite hackathon project is called AirWaze, and it’s designed to help you find your way in any airport. Modern airports are practically cities. Their team thought, “why can’t you navigate them like one?” They wanted their solution to be easy to use, and it needed to work on all devices, so they created a responsive web app to give the user directions throughout airports. The end result was a truly responsive app that could display directions within an airport, pulling the user’s location from scanning QR codes posted around the airport.

In addition to hackathons, Nathan is the co-founder of Cyber Starters, the co-founder of his high school math club, the founder of Kids Care as well as a chapter president for the National Technical Honor Society.
Stanley Lee

Stanley started applying to dozens of hackathons after a summer spark of self-taught web development before going into his freshman year of college. With little idea of what he had gotten himself into, he attended SDHacks thinking it was simply a competition for experienced programmers. After going, his perspective completely changed and he realized how inviting the community of mentors and hackers was. The caffeine and adrenaline fueled the most riveting 36 hours of his life. The sheer collaboration in figuring out how Git worked was filled with a mix of productivity and laughs. And by a miracle, all of them with bloodshot eyes made something. It was the strongest feeling of euphoria Stanley has ever had.

In a little over a year and twelve hackathons later, he has learned about a wide breadth of technologies and leadership skills that have propelled him into the life of a hacker. Whether it be mentors staying up with him at 3 AM to debug his Flexbox issues or his team ordering boba with 12 hours left in the hackathon, there have been so many incredible memories that he will never forget.

Stanley says, “The sheer amount of technologies and soft skills I’ve gained at hackathons is incomparable to any textbook I’ve ever read.” From creating simple static HTML pages to creating React applications, RESTful APIs, and web scrapers, this combination of skills and projects have given Stanley plenty to talk with recruiters and potential employers. The leadership skills he’s learned at hackathons have also translated into real-life project management as he helps teams with Kanban boards, bi-weekly standups, and daily code reviews. Stanley also has enjoyed mentoring hackers at various hackathons and giving back to this community. He is proud of his Hackathon Handbook that he published on Medium to help first-timers have the best experience possible at their first event.

His favorite project he’s ever worked on at a hackathon is Delivrr. Delivrr is the Uber for package delivery; just like how you can request a driver in seconds, you can request a courier to deliver your package to the other side of town in a fraction of time compared to a standard delivery service. In less than 7 months, a package delivery project at HackSC transformed from a mix of spaghetti code and documentation into a startup that has been accepted to two startup incubators at UC San Diego. Currently, they are rebranding to Wistly, and starting recruitment back up in 2020. They also hired an intern during their summer incubator and ultimately transformed the crazy idea they came up with on a bus into something they are still working on to this day.
Ellissa Peterson

Elissa first started coding her sophomore year of high school in an intro to Java class. She decided to try it out after enjoying a basic HTML page in her Video, Web, and More class the previous year. She immediately fell in love with the excitement she got from solving a problem that she could’ve been stuck on for a long time.

Ellissa was introduced to hackathons by a friend in her major at Iowa State University. In a last-minute decision, she decided to go with her friend and his group to Kansas for HackKU. She learned so much that weekend she started going to as many hackathons as possible. She currently has attended 11 hackathons.

Having attended plenty within a short period of time, Ellissa noticed a group of students that were at all of the same events as her from Iowa State and they became friends. Impacted by the hacker community, they wanted to help others find their way into the community. They started Hackathon Club, an organization whose sole purpose was to help introduce people to hackathons and help them to attend. In their first semester, the five members traveled the Midwest together attending events in Kansas, Missouri, and Florida. As of today, their club is currently 72 members strong and growing. More than half of their new members had never been to a hackathon before joining. Ellissa was recently elected as president and is excited about the six hackathons they have scheduled for this spring. Their main goal right now is to create a strong foundation for the club by fundraising and reaching out to the community to ensure its longevity.

Through hackathons, Ellissa has developed her hard skills such as learning React and Javascript and has grown immensely in her soft skills. She learned that she liked being a leader. It gave her the confidence she needed to find a great summer internship with SAP Concur. During her time there, she wrote tests using a testing framework called Cucumber. She worked alongside a team, creating tests for a new webpage.

Her favorite project from a hackathon was Cloud Hockey. She and her team created a web app that allowed them to pull data from an accelerometer in a smartphone taped to a hockey stick. They then represented this data on a real-time graph and were able to allow the judges to take turns hitting a stress ball into a make-shift net to view the acceleration of their shots. The project was innovative and ended up winning second place at PickHacks.