Jesse Hu

As president of his high school’s programming club, Jesse focused on creating a space for members to learn coding languages and share their interests in software engineering. He realized that he can have a strong impact on a community by helping others collectively achieve more, providing an avenue to apply his passion for uplifting others. He initially did not pursue hackathons himself, as he felt underprepared and did not know where to start. After a semester of virtual computer science courses his Freshman year at university, and during a quiet winter break, Jesse mustered the courage to try his first hackathon—Holiday Hacks hosted by MLH. He created SMSending Holiday Cards, an app for sending Hallmark holiday cards via text in a time when families could not gather due to the pandemic. He had no teammates at this first hackathon and did not win any prizes, yet Jesse gained confidence in himself for creating a working project in a short time span. Jesse also found inspiration from seeing other hackers’ fantastic projects in the winner’s gallery, making him excited for the skills and knowledge he would come to gain by working with other hackers. He has since filled many weekends with hackathons, improving his confidence and knowledge, collaborating and networking with hackers around the world, and overcoming many differences to code for a social cause.

After five hackathons Jesse felt confident enough to become a mentor, and he loves supporting great teams from around the world. Whether helping fix bugs or teaching new coders the ropes, Jesse enjoys uplifting and motivating other hackers to do their best; being among hackers who want to learn and share their experiences also lets Jesse learn by simply being present. Hackathons have shown him how to motivate his curious nature to improve practical software development and design skills. From front-end design to project marketing, creative freedom in hackathon projects allows him to try novel solutions. Building viable software in a fast-paced environment taught Jesse that how you communicate is just as important as what you communicate, and hackathons gave him a framework to promote safe and collaborative environments in a diverse and inclusive team. The perspectives, skills, and insights Jesse gained from the hacker community help him feel equipped with the right skills to solve problems in a diverse world for a variety of communities.

Jesse tends to focus his hackathon projects around serving a positive social cause, and his favorite was “Teach 4A Cause,” which won “Best Social Good Hack” at Hack Your Portfolio by MLH. Jesse loves to teach others and deepen their understanding of new skills, whether as a peer tutor, a violin teacher, a karate sensei, or a hacker, and he is also passionate about raising money for charity, having hosted a charity event with his co-founded strings orchestra for victims of wildfires. Teach 4A Cause unified such drives to support students’ need for online resources to get through virtual semesters, serving as a platform where users can teach courses in any field to raise money for a charity of their choice. Working with several beginner hackers and teammates across different time zones, Jesse sketched out an entity relationship diagram, facilitated communication between members, taught beginners how to leverage GitHub for collaborative coding of the frontend, wrote a template for the backend server, set up a React app, and more. Jesse wrote 16,000 lines of code in 48 hours, an exhilarating, exhausting, and extremely rewarding experience. He recalls his heart racing with excitement during his project’s demo, and when the project won “Best Social Good Hack” he could feel his team cheering through the computer screen. This project embodied his love of hackathons, collaborating with a small team to turn big ideas into reality, and tackling real-world problems to have a positive impact on communities.

The skills Jesse learned at hackathons allow him to design and develop apps for his own communities and to help disadvantaged communities. Before the pandemic, Jesse enjoyed refining his skills in activities such as pursuing a black belt in karate and leading his orchestra as first violinist. Now, Jesse combines these passions with his discovered love of hacking to engage with and give back to such communities, creating apps to help others continue these activities remotely. Jesse developed “Melodies” to provide a tuner, metronome, and songbook for his 40-member strings orchestra, and made “Spar Sensei” for karatekas to practice with augmented reality. As Jesse comes from a disadvantaged background, he is also passionate about using his skills to aid others from unfortunate circumstances and contribute to their communities. Jesse has made apps such as “Walk of Privilege,” a self-reflecting tool to discover and learn about biases, and “Taxavader,” a web tool that estimates taxes for those who cannot afford an accountant to save them money upfront and prevent unintentional penalties.

Although Jesse is a member of many communities, he found the greatest sense of belonging among hackers at hackathons. This community helped him realize how much he has left to learn and sparks his desire to pursue such interests further and deeper. In his first year at university, he started conducting research with several professors, examining and building multi-core hardware processors to create innovative and efficient technology. He intends to apply academic research findings in hackathons and to use hackathon skills in his academic journey.