Shivay Lamba

Programming did not come easy to Shivay for a long time, as he often struggled to write basic codes while students in his classes won programming competitions and hackathons. He was intrigued by the concept of hackathons, building a project within 1-2 days and meeting like-minded people, so he helped organize HackDTU 2018, but yet he struggled to attend events as a hacker. He tried to build teams to attend hackathons with, yet they always fell through, and in the process of organizing HackDTU he felt left out and not worthy of the work he was doing, as if such events were beyond his grasp and abilities. This dilemma continued until his third year at university, when he decided to make a change and work on himself in terms of visibility, activity, making extra efforts to improve programming and development skills, and getting help from his seniors. By the end of the year, Shivay was finally accepted to attend his first hackathon as a participant, where he teamed up with first-year students that were also new to hackathons. From ideation to actually coding, the hackathon experience was intriguing and fun for Shivay as he focused not on the result of his project but on the experience of attending that he had long sought after. His team ended up winning a first place prize, which marked the breaking point for all of his success to come. After years of wanting to attend hackathons yet feeling unworthy of doing so, Shivay’s first hackathon showed him that fear has no place at such events, only joy and excitement to learn new things and meet new people, and that it is never too late to start something new.

Shivay attended over 70 events since then as a participant, mentor, judge, and organizer, winning at 28 events and coming top 15 at most others, including HackMIT, HackTech, Thoughtworks Hackathon, and HackZurich. Learning new technologies, practicing the ideation and pitching of a product, and networking with other hackers has opened so many doors in life for Shivay, from internship opportunities to teaching life skills, that it’s hard for him to even acknowledge them all. As he attended and won more hackathons, Shivay realized the importance of making products that impact the lives of real people. and he wanted to help others at hackathons find the same growth and success he had found. He realized the importance of guiding new hackers as they learn, improve their skills, and create their own social benefit projects, so he became a mentor at various international hackathons including QWER Hackathon at UCLA for the LGBTQ+ community, LA Hacks, and Innovation Cup in FUTO Nigeria. Shivay hopes to help empower members of the hacker community, as he shows by example that it is never too late to start improving oneself, learn to code, or have a positive impact on the world. Aside from mentoring, Shivay has dedicated his time in 2020 and onwards to giving back to the hacker community through organizing events, hosting free speaker sessions at Code For Cause, Singh in USA, Coding Blocks, and more that reached over 100,000 people, appearances on podcasts, helping create YouTube content for hackathons, and working as a Fellow in the MLH Fellowship program Explorer Pod.

An event organizer helps define how hackathons function, identifies what they want hackers to learn from the experience, and figure out how to help them do so. Whether working on a variety of workshops, hackathon events, or speaker sessions, Shivay finds organizing to be a great way to leave an impact on both first-time and seasoned hackers and give them the same great experiences that he had at his first event and beyond. He enjoys helping newcomers get the important guidance that they need to maneuver hackathons and have a good time, and he also helps organizing team members understand the dynamics of putting a hackathon together regarding hosting, creating judging criteria, finding good prizes, and more. He has organized in-person events for HackMAIT, HackDTU, and HackGTBIT, as well as virtual events for HackOn, and The Python Week, with events ranging from 400 to over 3000 attendees. Shivay’s particular contributions tend to focus on honing an atmosphere of learning, sharing, and displaying skills, and hearing positive feedback from attendees motivates him to keep giving back to the community and ensures he is doing what he can to help attendees feel comfortable and have fun. Shivay has also mentored and spoken at over 25 hackathons that he helped organize, and in performing these different roles he gets to help students find inspiration to make amazing projects that change the world one piece at a time.

The MLH Fellowship was one of Shivay’s favorite experiences in the hacker community and he had so much fun as he learned and collaborated with other Fellows. He had applied to Batch 0 of the program but was rejected because of the poor internet and audio quality which would hinder his contributions to the program. He was understandably upset, but it taught him that he had to not only prepare himself but his environment for future interviews. When Batch 1 of the MLH Fellowship was announced, Shivay was excited about the new programs that it offered and applied again, this time better prepared in every sense. He ended up being selected for the MLH Fellowship Explorer Track, which turned out to be the best experience of his life.

The structure of the MLH Explorer track was unique and intuitive, featuring 6 hackathon sprints of different themes that each lasted 2 weeks, filling the 3-month program with deep dives into a variety of hackathon projects. With a focus on collaborative learning, teams had ample time to learn and teach each other new tech stacks, workflows, and video editing skills. Being able to commit more time to each project made the inclusive environment of hackathons even more amplified through fun and effective teamwork, guidance from pod leaders, and support from mentors. Collaborating through group and paired programming sessions brought Shivay closer to the other Fellows, while the positive and inclusive environment let them create 6 amazing and empowering projects. Over the course of the 12 weeks, Shivay gained a new perspective towards learning, helping him think outside the box while approaching problems and solutions in a variety of ways. The Fellowship was an amazing learning experience guided by a shared passion for hacking, and Shivay pays the experience forward every time he organizes, mentors, and attends hackathons, empowering and helping others through the hacker community.

Shivay was inspired to create his favorite hackathon project by a visit to a blind school, as he noticed the difficulties the students faced when using the talk-back feature on their phones with braille boards. 289 million people are visually impaired, 33 million are completely blind, and 1/3 of the global blind population is in India. Braille boards are a common tool for the visually impaired in India to write and communicate with others, yet the boards are expensive and bulky, meaning that many are unable to own or use braille boards. Shivay wanted to help solve this problem by creating a smaller braille board that is cheap, easy to access, and globally available for those in need. With his team at PainIIT’s Solve4Bharat Hackathon, Shivay planned to make a braille board that can be used to efficiently type sentences, communicate with others, play games, and even code. The project used an Arduino nano and tact buttons in an IoT device to receive braille inputs from a visually impaired person that are then sent to the user’s phone, where a paired Android app would read inputs out loud so users can engage with their inputs however they need. Machine learning was implemented in the app to predict the users’ words and help speed up the input process. The project was hugely successful, winning first at the event and earning a top 10 ranking at the nationwide Google Build for Digital India contest, but Shivay is mostly proud of the project because it is actively used by visually impaired students and at blind schools in India. Having a positive impact on the world and helping those in need are driving forces in Shivay’s passion for programming.

Technology has the power to change anyone’s life, and it certainly has changed Shivay’s. Using tech for himself he has been able to learn, grow, and implement skills to real-world problems, and by sharing tech with others he has helped inspire many in his region to find similar growth. Tech allowed him to empower himself, the underrepresented peoples of the world through projects, and others in their journey to find inspiration in improving society. All the skills that the hacker community teaches can also be honed through giving back to the very same community, a fulfilling and fun way to practice a diverse array of skills while making meaningful contributions to the community. Shivay is who he is today with the help of hackathons, and he will be forever grateful for focusing on his hacker journey as it helped him grow his skills and sense of self, let him make an impact on greater society, and gave him a platform to further empower members of the hacker community.