owengretzinger/mlh-top-hackers-2020-2023 huggingface dataset:
Jeffery John

Jeffery John uses tech to bring people together. His skills, focus, and positive engagement enhance the hacker community.

Jeffery started programming in early childhood, using Microsoft Small Basic. However, he discovered his true passion for programming in college. He has an interest in public policy and realized he could combine it with his technical expertise, using computer science as a “force multiplier” to “create widespread good for humanity.”

At the University of Georgia, he discovered the fun and exciting world of hackathons. He learned about UGAHacks 4 in Spring 2019 through a poster in the Science Library and immediately signed up for the hackathon. He was so engaged with the event that he knew he had a future with UGAHacks. He says, “While I had arrived to the event alone, I found myself applying to join together with the organizers afterward. During my interview, I could feel the more I spoke with the new UGAHacks 5 lead director, the more confident I was, and looking back, I know I was right in having found part of my purpose.”

He joined a welcoming community, rose to a mentorship role, and made UGAHacks his central focus. He says, “By mentoring my team and community members, I felt I was speaking to the younger versions of myself that were unheard. By sharpening their skills, I've received motivation and pride in the opportunities and success my community has found.”

Ultimately, he became the Lead Director of UGAHacks 7, the university’s first physical event since 2019—and UGAHacks’s first hybrid event! It was challenging to get it off the ground, but he persevered. He faced logistical obstacles and policy roadblocks, including scheduling conflicts, COVID-19 concerns, and WiFi outages. He made the event a success by using his leadership skills and collaborating with many student organizations on campus. As he says, “Rallying my organizers, we kept our roster of club events active and were able to gather momentum to break through to our most successful hackathon ever.”

His hacking experience encouraged him to broaden his reach and leadership on campus. He enjoyed the community and wanted to be involved in many ways. He worked in Information Technology at the University Health Center and served as Program Manager of the Small Satellite Research Laboratory. He became the president of the ACM @ UGA student chapter and lead organizer of the Google Developer Group Athens. At ACM and GDG Athens, Jeffery trained students in technical interview preparation, organized community study groups, and provided out-of-the-classroom opportunities to all members.

Jeffery remains focused on supporting his community and creating positive outcomes. His next step is to pursue a Master of Human-Computer Interaction at Carnegie Mellon University.
Jorge Sanchez

Jorge Sanchez of Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico is a longtime hacker, who first developed a passion for technology when he was just 4 years old. He recalls being awestruck by his first Xbox console, and becoming deeply curious about how it actually worked. That curiosity led Jorge to pursue a career in technology, completing two Unity programs while still in high school. Those programs opened his eyes to just how broad the field of technology is. Jorge, who admits to sometimes being too inquisitive, was inspired by the vast world of programming. From cybersecurity and data science to artificial intelligence and DevOps, Jorge says he “will never be bored because there will always be something new to learn.”

As someone with a constant drive to learn more about the world of programming, hackathons proved the perfect environment for Jorge to grow and develop his craft. He attended his first hackathon, HackMTY, in 2018. “I had never been to a hackathon before,” Jorge says, “so I was super nervous.” Despite being brand new to hacking, he was determined to get involved in the hacker community, so he convinced several of his friends to join him on the 12 hour drive from Guadalajara to Monterrey for HackMTY.

Not only was their team able to complete and deliver their project during the hackathon, but Jorge says this was his first run-in with Major League Hacking. He was awarded a Major League Hacking (MLH) sticker which read ‘I Demoed’. Jorge says he was “super proud” of the sticker he had earned as recognition for his work, and he displayed it on his laptop. While admitting he “knew nothing about programming” when he first started his undergraduate degree at the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, he was inspired by a friend, who was interning with Microsoft and had participated in several MLH hackathons, to get more involved with the hacker community. Jorge applied for the competitive MLH Fellowship, making it to the last round but not ultimately being selected. The next year, Jorge applied again and was waitlisted, before applying a final time and making it all the way through in 2021. Jorge completed both the Production Engineering and Open Source tracks of the MLH Fellowship’s 12 week program, and believes “these two opportunities have changed my life.”

Now, Jorge strives to give back to the hacker community in any way he can. At his university, he founded Club Algoritmia GDA, which helps students prepare for the International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) by hosting workshops, guiding students through interview preparation, and offering help with students’ resumes and portfolios. In just a couple of years, the club has expanded from 7 members to over 300. Around 40 members of the club have earned internships at top tech companies. The messages of gratitude Jorge has received for his work with Club Algoritmia keep him inspired and push him to drive change in the hacker community. The words of gratitude in those messages are “simply something that I will never forget and that I will always carry in my heart,” Jorge says.
Governess Simpson

Governess Simpson calls her path to computer science success “unorthodox,” and that experience helped her excel. She’s paying it forward to others in similar situations and inspiring many along the way. Her journey is one of breaking barriers, to “demonstrate to other hackers (particularly women and women of color) that despite their background or rough starts, they, too, can reach their goals.”

Up until her senior year of high school, Governess wanted to be a vocal performer. In 12th grade, a teacher inspired her to pursue a STEM major instead of Vocal Performance in college, telling her that she showed potential to be a great engineer. She reflected and committed to a future in computer science, but it wasn’t all smooth sailing; she felt a connection with coding but struggled in introductory classes. However, she hit the real obstacle in her sophomore year, when she was rejected from the Computer Science major at her university. Many people would have given up at that point, but not Governess. She says, “Despite my initial setback, I was still motivated to succeed in this field and carve a path for myself and others in a similar situation.”

She fostered connections, creating a social network of like-minded people interested in technology. Her “aha” moment came in 2018, when she participated in her first hackathon, MinneHack. She fondly recalls, “I was nervous about competing and that I’d be a fish-out-of-water, but everyone was incredibly welcoming, and the energy in the space was electrifying.” Her first Major League Hacking member event was a resounding success, and she hasn’t looked back, participating in and hosting many hackathons since.

She blossomed into a natural leader and role model. After her rejection from Computer Science, she found solace and comfort in her hacking family, and that feeling continued in hackathons and her role as an MLH Localhost Organizer. Her talents have truly shined since she became a student leader in Black Wings, which supports black women studying technology and engineering in college. Organizing Black Wings Hacks, which gives women of color access to unique networking opportunities, has helped drive her enthusiasm and compassion.

To Governess, community is everything. She recalls being doubted by some when she tried to break into Computer Science, but also the overwhelming reassurance and guidance she received from her various communities. Feeling the support and encouragement she did when she was down on her luck was not enough: she wanted to give others the same confidence. Her work with Black Wings and her participation in MLH hackathons are focused on helping others and nurturing relationships.

She says, “The hacker community (and hackathons in general) gave me direction and guidance […] I found confidence, reassurance, and belonging. Now I want to create those spaces for others in technology. That’s my calling.”
Akshay Akula

Akshay Akula grew up with a passion for creating things, but never imagined himself as a programmer. He recalls building a rudimentary motor using a magnet, paper clips, and some copper wire in the 3rd grade, and the feeling of “pure wonder” at watching it burst into motion. By the time Akshay graduated high school, he was dead set on pursuing a degree in mechanical engineering at Virginia Tech. At the time, Akshay says the only coding he knew was basic Java.

Freshman year is always full of surprises, however. While Akshay was eating in his university’s dining hall, his friend and former soccer teammate, Naman Singh, approached and invited him to participate in his first hackathon, VTHacks. Akshay says he “relentlessly learned Java” in the two days left before the event. Inspired by mentors at the hackathon, who he says “were like my idols,” Akshay changed his major to computer science and hasn’t looked back.

Crediting his first hackathon experience with being “the one event that imparted in me the confidence and knowledge that I can build anything if I put my mind to it,” Akshay was hooked. He attended the Virginia Commonwealth University’s 2019 HealthHacks shortly after. In the last three years since attending his first hackathon, Akshay has won both VTHacks and HooHacks, and competed in many other hackathons, including DevRev, Chainlink Hackathon, and Polkadot Hackathon.

Akshay says although he loves competing in hackathons, his “real draw is the ability to teach and help others with coding.” The summer after his freshman year of college, when Akshay first decided to teach coding to new hackers, he left posters advertising free Java tutoring all over his neighborhood. Akshay’s first student was nervous and struggled with confidence in his coding, but Akshay persevered and changed his lesson plan completely, letting his student draw out blocks of code to understand how they worked. He has since found other ways to share his love for coding, encouraging others to attend hackathons and even teaching full stack development on the side. Akshay says he just loves to see people “realize their ability to build.” To him, helping to build a hacker community at Virginia Tech has been the “most powerful and fulfilling form of building.”

“The hacker community means so much to me,” Akshay says, adding “I want to be like the mentors who inspired me.” Wanting to be more involved with the hacker community, he founded the club Blockchain at Virginia Tech, which already boasts more than 100 active members. Next year, Akshay’s club will be hosting its first hackathon, which he says will be “focused on blockchain development and learning.” Despite the club starting only recently, in September of 2021, it has grown tremendously over the last ten months. Blockchain at Virginia Tech has already partnered with five local corporations, participated in more than twenty events, and placed 2nd in Blockchain@Columbia’s LionHACK. To date, however, Akshay believes the club’s biggest accomplishment has been “making lifelong connections and discovering and sharing our spark for blockchain technology.”
Gedion Teshome

Gedion Teshome grew up reading science fiction novels and has had a passion for technology for as long as he can remember. While he fixed electronic devices all the time growing up in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, he specifically recalls that it was when he fixed his first laptop while still in middle school that he knew the direction he wanted to go with his career. In high school, Gedion began taking advanced programming courses, and soon realized he had a knack for coding. Toward the end of high school, even though Gedion was already well prepared for the software engineering program he would begin at the Addis Ababa Science and Technology University after graduation, he “wanted to try something new and learn something different” than what was taught in class.

Though he did not feel qualified to participate in his first hackathon, ETHIOHACKS, in 2018, hackathons seemed like a perfect place to learn, and Gedion even managed to take second place for his project. Gedion says “the people I met and the experience itself was so inviting that I [have] been involved ever since.” Competing in a number of other hackathons since 2018, including Same Home Different Hacks, ICON Hyperhack, and DevRev, Gedion has paved his way through the hacker community. In addition to competing, Gedion has gone on to act as a mentor and a judge at other hackathons, become a GitHub Campus Expert, and has even helped organize a hackathon with Def Hacks.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Gedion says he had the opportunity to “read, learn, and practice anything and everything.” During the first year of the pandemic, Gedion dedicated his time to learning new stacks, taking on difficult data science and cybersecurity courses, and sourcing partnership leads for a tech startup. However, Gedion felt he needed direction to narrow his focus as a programmer to more specific skill sets. He joined the MLH Fellowship in the summer of 2021 and continued to develop his programming skills with a little more guidance. In that time, he also developed a passion for teaching others and began hosting workshops. Gedion says the “experience…itself helped me to stand out from the talent pool.” Within months of completing the Fellowship, Gedion was being recognized by large tech companies and has since worked as a senior full stack developer and a technical trainer.

For nearly a year, Gedion has also worked as an Admissions Specialist with Major League Hacking, interviewing and helping to select the best candidates out of the thousands of applications. Gedion says he became an Admissions Specialist because of how highly he regarded the Fellowship. Opportunities like the MLH Fellowship are not exactly common in Addis Ababa, and Gedion is happy to be able to give back to the hacker community. In his role as admissions specialist, Gedion says he appreciates giving other “talented people out there the same experience I was able to gain from the Fellowship.” Gedion plans to stay involved in the hacker community after he graduates from his university and says his experience as a hacker has left him feeling “prepared, confident, and ready” for his professional career after college.
Ayushi Sangoi

Ayushi Sangoi’s career so far has been nothing short of impressive. A current PhD candidate at the Vision and Neural Engineering Laboratory at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) in collaboration with Rutgers University’s Health Science Campus, she has earned a dual degree in Biomedical Engineering and Computer Engineering, won several hackathons, and developed a reputation as a leader in her field, advocating for underrepresented groups in technology. She says her love for coding was sparked in high school, when she was selected for Karlie Kloss’ ultra-competitive Kode With Klossy coding camp. Learning to code with Ruby, HTML, and CSS helped her see the promise of technology in the biomedical world, and she was able to merge both of her passions.

By her sophomore year of college at NJIT in 2017, Ayushi had decided to add a second major in Computer Engineering. Wanting to dive right into the world of technology, when she heard about HackNJIT from her friends, she immediately signed up. “Since then, I have been hooked and have attended many more hackathons,” Ayushi says. At first, she was skeptical that she would fit in as an engineer with more experience in MATLAB than in Python—today, she has attended over 40 hackathons.

At Hack(H)er413, Ayushi secured her first hackathon win with a MATLAB project. She now enjoys using languages that are more popular with engineers than hackers, ensuring that her projects stand out. To Ayushi, “seeing the diversity of projects, especially hardware hacks,” is what inspired her to begin submitting her own projects at hackathons in the first place. She still fondly remembers being impressed by a pinball game made of pizza boxes. Her first hackathon project was a hardware hack, a boat she aptly named Frankenstein which would run based on the contractions of an Arduino-driven electrically stimulated frog leg.

When Ayushi first started competing at hackathons, she specifically submitted hardware hacks because she felt her coding skills were not up-to-par with her predominantly male classmates. However, with more experience, she has “come to appreciate hackers in all walks of life and experience.” Her latest win at HackNJIT involved hardware integrated with a primarily software project designed to help universities and domestic violence centers.

Today, Ayushi is doing her part to make an impact and make the hacker community even more inclusive. Recently, she was selected to be a campus facilitator for Kode with Klossy. As part of her role, she recruits women and gender non-conforming students to code in HTML and CSS. Focusing her efforts in her local area of Newark, New Jersey, she was able to recruit 12 students for her first workshop. Along with her co-facilitator, Ayushi has focused on empowering women in technology and encouraged their students to attend female-centric hackathons. “I believe recruiting girls and showing them early the importance of coding and the purpose of hackathons are some of my biggest impacts on the hacker community,” Ayushi says.