owengretzinger/mlh-top-hackers-2020-2023 huggingface dataset:
Dhiraj Chauhan

Dhiraj Chauhan is a constant advocate for open source and public learning. A third-year computer science student from Mumbai, India, Dhiraj formerly worked as a full-stack developer at Ironforge, and he specializes in Android, Web, and Solana blockchain development.

His support for public learning drives him to constantly share his knowledge with others. He loves to speak at events and has conducted multiple seminars to encourage and mentor students who are interested in programming, open source, and building tech communities.

Dhiraj is a Google Summer of Code mentor at 52°North (where he started last year as a participant). He was also a Major League Hacking (MLH) Fellow in 2022, collaborating with Solana Labs through our Web3 Engineering track. Along with that, he is a GitHub Campus Expert and actively promotes open source in his local community. Dhiraj attributes his achievements to open source and believes in its power to facilitate collaborative learning and growth.

His path wasn’t always easy, though. At first, Dhiraj wasn’t sure technology was for him. He remembers that at the start of his journey as a programmer, “I struggled to write even a single line of code or make sense of the concepts.” Yet he persevered and learned Python, eventually starting Android development and learning about open source technology. He credits his brother for pushing him to persevere and work harder.

Once he enrolled at the Thakur College of Engineering, he couldn’t find a community where he could discuss what he was learning. The solution? He and his colleagues founded Cerritus Coders, a student-run community focusing on open-source, project-based learning, helping students learn and develop their coding skills. Under Dhiraj's leadership, Cerritus Coders has grown to over 400 people and has had a significant impact on the hacker community. He says, “Through our efforts, we have organized multiple events and impacted thousands of students, giving them a platform for learning, building, and sharing.”

Dhiraj got hooked on hackathons through his first hackathon, MLH HackFit in November 2021. The competition and teamwork aspects of HackFit showed him the potential of MLH hackathons to build community and inspire learning.

Dhiraj believes in sharing his knowledge, and enjoys mentoring and teaching others. He has organized 10+ events impacting thousands of students and helping them grow their skill sets. His efforts have had a significant impact on the hacker community. He states, “This journey through technology, communities, and hackathons has definitely been amazing. I am grateful for the opportunity to be part of such inspiring, supportive, and inclusive communities, which have surely changed my life.” With his knowledge, skills, and dedication, he is sure to continue making a difference in the technology world and inspiring others to do the same.
Cynthia Akanaga

Cynthia Akanaga is on her way to being certified as a student skydiver, but up until last year, she thought pursuing computer science would be too huge a leap. Originally from Imo State, Nigeria, Cynthia now attends Mount Holyoke College. In addition to pursuing her degree, she’s served as an organizer for TechTogether Boston and made a splash at hackathons like Rewriting the Code’s Black Wings Hacks, which was organized by previous Major League Hacking (MLH) Top 50 recipient Governess Simpson.

Cynthia's passion for technology and coding began by chance during her first semester of college when she took an introductory computer science course. Despite struggling in class, Cynthia enjoyed the challenge and was drawn to the possibilities that the field offered. She found support and encouragement from other women in technology through organizations like Rewriting the Code, which helped her navigate the tech industry and foster a sense of community. Since finding community, she has been pursuing a computer science degree and is particularly interested in artificial intelligence and machine learning. She hopes to use her skills to solve real-world problems.

Her first hackathon experience was at Rookie Hacks II, when she realized her potential to learn and grow exponentially. Though Cynthia attended her first hackathon in 2022, she has already served as an organizer for TechTogether Boston. She says she felt inspired to “give back to the community and learn what it’s like to be on the other side.”

She has since strived to create a more inclusive environment for underrepresented groups, particularly women in tech. Cynthia has supported her peers by offering support, guidance, and mentorship to women who are starting out in tech. She creates one-on-one connections with others in her hackathon teams, listening, sharing her experiences, and providing advice on navigating the industry. As she says, “I find myself in the midst of a support system I had never known about.” She hopes to inspire and encourage more women to pursue careers in technology and help them feel confident and empowered.

Cynthia has also strengthened her community by organizing events and hackathons that promote diversity and inclusivity. She states, “by providing a platform for individuals from all backgrounds to come together and collaborate on innovative projects, we can help break down barriers and create a more welcoming community.” She is proud both of her Nigerian heritage and of her positive impact on the hacker community.
Mughees Pervaiz

Mughees Pervaiz, who goes by Mugy, broke into the world of tech through hackathons. As an introverted kid who often felt overlooked, he initially found the hacking community in the 7th grade, looking for a way to stand out and connect with his classmates by impressing them with his hacking skills. Not only has he made great friends at hackathons, but he has also made crucial professional connections. Since his first hackathon, Facebook Hackathon 2020, Mugy has gone on to submit winning projects at DeepDiveHacks and the inclusion-focused Hack Concode.

It may come as a surprise that Mugy did not always see himself as a hacker. Growing up he dreamed of becoming an astronaut, of unraveling the mysteries of the universe and setting his sights for the stars. But with limited resources for aspiring astronauts in Pakistan, Mugy found other ways to stand out and unlock the limitless possibilities he saw in the stars when he was little. He has always been passionate about leveraging technology to solve real-world problems, and in programming he found the perfect outlet.

For example, Mugy recently worked with a team to create dyslexic, an all-in-one app for students with dyslexia which included a built-in diagnostic quiz, a chat function for confidential communications with psychologists, full parental controls, and educational activities. In 2022, dyslexic was even chosen as one of the top 50 projects in the Google Developer Student Clubs (GDSC) Solution Challenge. Their team’s success was noticed by Google Pakistan, and Mugy was invited by Google to share his journey with new GDSC student leads.

Mugy has a track record of providing critical mentorship to others. He has volunteered as a mentor with She Builds and collaborated on a podcast dedicated to helping students succeed in the Google Developer Student Clubs Solution Challenge. In his free time, he helps high school students access technical resources, allowing them to bring their innovative ideas to life and tackle real-world issues like water scarcity and food insecurity.

Mugy’s accomplishments led him to be selected as the first lead for the University of South Asia’s chapter of Google Developer Student Clubs. Through GDSC, Mugy has hosted several events, including Google I/O Extended 2022 – Lahore and DevFest Lahore 2021. Mugy thrives on the collaborative environment of events like DevFest, and calls the event one of the most fun experiences of his life so far. He says, “It was an honor for me to organize this event. I met a lot of amazing people and developers.”

His hackathon experiences inspired him to further his career in tech by participating in the MLH Fellowship. After being denied more than 10 times, Mugy was finally admitted to the Software Engineering track. He called it “a dream come true” to be selected. Mugy says the experience of working with GitLab as part of their Foundation Team was “a really valuable experience and one of the best things that has happened to my career so far.” Mugy will be graduating with a bachelor’s degree in computer science in Spring 2024. Always a thrill seeker, Mugy’s other passions include riding roller coasters and skydiving.
Henok Ademtew

Henok Ademtew is a rising star in the hacker community, known for his passion for coding, hackathons, and mentorship. He is a Computer Science student at Kotebe Metropolitan University in Ethiopia, and has already made a name for himself both as a mentor and as a back-to-back hackathon winner.

Henok's love for solving puzzles and unlocking complex secrets began at an early age. He was always fascinated by the night sky and intrigued by the mysteries of the cosmos, but he was also an avid detective-novel reader. He remembers always “trying to solve the mysteries before the protagonist did.” These logic and problem-solving skills shared with the heroes of detective novels became a natural pathway that Henok followed into coding and programming.

In high school, Henok was inspired by a love of video games to teach himself C++ and Python. He also joined AddisCoder, an intensive four-week summer program that introduces high schoolers to programming. “If it wasn’t for the program,” he says, “I wouldn’t be where I am today.” Henok was able to support the AddisCoders community in turn by serving as a TA.

Henok discovered his love for hackathons in the fall of 2020 when he participated in the NASA Space Apps Challenge. Although he was inexperienced with the hackathon format and felt a little hesitant, he and his team still won the competition’s people’s choice award, igniting his passion for hackathons. Since then, he has taken part in more than 40 hackathons, developing his programming skills while learning valuable problem-solving strategies. He says, “These events have given me the opportunity to work with like-minded individuals who share my passion for technology.”

Henok has also benefited from the Major League Hacking (MLH) community’s supportive and collaborative environment. Through MLH hackathons and the MLH Fellowship Prep program, he has been introduced to a variety of partner organizations, such as Cohere AI, which awarded him the title of Cohere Champion and where he currently serves as a Discord moderator. Through this organization, he has teamed up with engineers, fellow hackers, AI researchers, and more, giving him unparalleled opportunities—including speaking at Devopsdays Chattanooga about open source and hacking.

Henok has been inspired to give back to the technology community by volunteering as a mentor and judge for international hackathons. He has taken on the role of Regional Manager for CodeDay Ethiopia, organizing the country's first CodeDay hackathons. Henok is used to being one of the only Ethiopian hackers at an event, and he represents his home country with courage, independence, and ambition.

Henok's success in the technology community is a testament to his dedication, passion, and hard work. He has a promising future ahead of him, and his contributions to the community motivate others to pursue their own bright futures.
Vaibhav Kadam

Vaibhav Kadam is an accomplished hacker and cybersecurity expert based in Pune, Maharashtra, India. He is currently a student at Savitribai Phule Pune University, pursuing a degree in computer engineering, and is an Intern Security Consultant at Securityium.

Vaibhav's love for technology and coding actually started during his first year of computer engineering, when he wrote his first Python program: a simple calculator. He was immediately impressed with the versatility of the programming language, which led him to explore other areas of technology. One such area was cybersecurity. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Vaibhav attended a cybersecurity workshop that immediately captured his attention, sparking an interest in ethical hacking. Since then, his passion for coding has ignited, and he has focused on programming with an emphasis on cybersecurity as a career.

Vaibhav's exposure to the hacker community started when he jumped into his first hackathon, Hack The Mountains 2.0 in June 2021. Suddenly, he had found his place in the world. He says, “I discovered the value of community and the immense benefits of connecting with like-minded individuals. It was this realization that led me to explore various communities and engage in several Major League Hacking (MLH) hackathons.” He was impressed by the hackathons, but others were noticing his success too. He received second place in Lights, Camera, Hacktion! and has not looked in the rearview mirror since.

Vaibhav now shouts the benefits of hackathons from the rooftops. He has established a community called Club TechBrewers, through which he organizes and leads a variety of virtual events like UI/UX workshops, Android development workshops, and introductory Git and Github sessions. Additionally, Vaibhav has worked with other communities to organize events such as Azure DevDay Pune, .NET Day, and Flutter Forwarded Extended. He has also organized several offline events within the community, including TechBrewers Meetups and TechBrewers CelCon. These experiences have helped him build lasting relationships within many communities and work with people of all backgrounds.

Throughout his journey in the hacker community, Vaibhav has made a positive impact by leveraging his expertise and knowledge of cybersecurity. He accomplishes this by delivering seminars providing valuable insights and knowledge to his peers. These sessions have been popular! His offline session "SSRF: Overview and Exploits" garnered over 250 attendees. Moreover, he has actively worked towards building a community that is inclusive, supportive, and conducive to learning, which he believes has helped increase the number of individuals pursuing a career in cybersecurity.

Vaibhav is currently applying his expertise as an Intern Security Consultant at Securityium OPC Pvt. Ltd., honing his cybersecurity skills and supporting their mission to safeguard businesses through ethical hacking. Vaibhav's dedication to the hacker community and his passion for cybersecurity have not gone unnoticed. He has been invited to speak at the upcoming GDSC WOW Pune event—just one more way his impact is being recognized in the community.
Raj Gaurav

Raj Gaurav lives on his own terms. He is a driven open-source contributor, hacker, mentor, and Major League Hacking (MLH) Fellow from Pratapgarh, Uttar Pradesh, India, currently based in Bangalore. He attended the University of London and has served as an XRPL Campus Ambassador, as well as a mentor at The Collab Lab and HackYourFuture. Raj is a self-taught software and electronics engineer who has always had an interest in linguistics, mathematics, science, and video games.

His passion for technology started when he got his first computer. He went on to teach himself how to code and build games, learning full-stack web and mobile development, system design and architecture, and even delving into electronics programming, leading him to his current work with machine automation.

In the 7th grade, he discovered the hacking community, where he found other hackers, coders, developers, and engineers who shared his passions. Raj joined communities like Overthewire, and his  journey in tech took a turn for the better. Though Raj has always been a self-directed learner, he credits the things he learned from various tech communities with kickstarting his success.

Raj's story stands out in the hacker community. As a self-taught software and electronics engineer, he chooses to pursue his education on his own terms. He has developed intense discipline in order to lead a healthy and productive life. He is quick to acknowledge that conventional paths aren’t for him, and has dropped out of established engineering programs to learn directly from industry veterans. He works remotely, studies remotely, and travels to different cities every few months to learn about culture and diversity with the stipends he earns from internships and freelancing projects.

Raj’s independence doesn’t mean he works alone. Through the MLH Fellowship he has built a wide network of collaborators. Raj looks forward to doing more community building through his job as a SWE at DPS Munich and at START Hack Switzerland. Raj frequently volunteers at coding bootcamps, hackathons, and open-source programs. He is mentoring at HackYourFuture and leads the South Asia chapter for The Collab Lab. He has mentored at more than 40 hackathons including HackHarvard, GreatUniHack, SheCodeAfrica, and Codepath.

Whatever new project he takes on or new community he joins, Raj is always finding his own way forward. Currently, Raj is building InfiOpp.com, a community-based opportunities board to support developers seeking opportunities in tech. A stellar example of self-motivation and independence, Raj is an inspiration to other hackers pursuing nontraditional paths, and a reminder that there is no wrong way to pursue a career in technology.
Celina Cywinska

Celina never planned on pursuing a career in tech. Her senior year of high school, she was dead set on moving to the US to study psychology. However, recognizing the high cost of studying abroad, she made the spontaneous decision to stay in Poland and enroll in a Bachelor of Engineering program in computer science at the Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology (PJAIT).

Celina was always independent, believing she could solve any problem by herself. But she also dealt with nagging doubts about her abilities as a programmer. “I would feel embarrassed to reach out to others for help,” she said, and found herself constantly asking: “What if people think I’m not good enough?”

When Celina found the Major League Hacking (MLH) community through the MLH Fellowship in the summer of 2022, she had already been studying computer science for 2 years. But it was through the hacker community, and not her classes, that she began to overcome her self-doubt and blossom into the successful hacker she is today. The community she joined during the MLH Fellowship showed her that asking questions was not a sign of weakness, but a marker of strength and a means to grow. Celina’s first hacking experiences were overwhelmingly positive. She participated in the MLH Fellowship Orientation Hackathon and the Fall 2022 orientation hackathon, where she was recognized for her work on Cody, an AI chatbot for computer science students.

Through hacking, Celina says, “I have learned how to ask meaningful questions, how to communicate my problems, and how to feel confident in difficult situations.” In addition to improving her technical skills, Celina believes the hacker community has been the biggest catalyst for her personal growth. Despite being more than two years into her hacking career by the time she found the MLH Fellowship, she considers it the most significant milestone of her career thus far. Inspired by mentors, pod leaders, and the new friends she met, she began to realize the importance of contributing to a team.

What keeps Celina going are the possibilities computer science presents for solving real-world problems, which can make a visible and tangible impact on the community. She is using her knowledge as a hacker to create actionable change in her community. Currently, she is partnering with local hospitals in Warsaw to create a web-based system for confidential doctor-patient communication and secure medical data storage. While studying at PJAIT, she has also worked as an open source and software engineering intern with G-Research and is in the process of interviewing for her university’s chapter of Google Developer Student Clubs. Every chance she gets, Celina is also working on raising climate change awareness and developing solutions using her technical knowledge. Her dream is to one day establish her own environmentally conscious company, writing code that truly benefits everyone.
Samantha O'Connell

Samantha O'Connell blends a background in the arts with tech expertise to push the boundaries of coding. With extensive experience in art, animation, computer science, and engineering, she is an accomplished hacker who has made a unique impact on the tech community.

Samantha's passion for technology and coding began when she was a child, in part because of her interest in video games and desire to create her own games. In high school, she participated in an after-school program at the School of Interactive Arts/Urban Arts Partnership, where she learned a variety of programming languages, including C++ and C# within Unity.

She later enrolled at Borough of Manhattan Community College, where she persevered despite having to change her major from Engineering to Liberal Arts. Thanks to the guidance of a professor, she discovered hackathons and attended the Virtual Make-A-Thon for Social Good in 2020. Since that event, her technology expertise has blossomed, and she’s been invited back to BMCC to speak on a panel for current students.

Samantha was initially hesitant, but her experience at that first hackathon proved to be transformative. She discovered a welcoming community of like-minded individuals who shared her passion for technology and coding. She says, “I really enjoy hackathons because we're all people from different walks of life, casually teaching each other how to better ourselves [and] gain insight we may never have known otherwise.”

Since her first Major League Hacking (MLH) experience, Samantha has attended four hackathons and won two awards, including winning the 2021 BMCC Virtual Make-a-Thon for Social Good and Best Use of MATLAB at HackNYU 2023. Her accomplishments have earned her recognition in the NYU tech community and have helped establish her as a dynamic leader.

Samantha is not just a talented coder, but also a dedicated and continually involved member of her community. She belongs to 50 different clubs, is a club leader, and holds three chair positions on the student council at NYU SPS. She is also a member of the Alumni Council for the Governor's Committee on Scholastic Achievement, where she helps high school students achieve academic success. Samantha's desire to help others extends beyond her extracurricular activities. She personally created a 181-slide presentation to help students engage with NYU, providing them with valuable information about programs, scholarships, and educational resources.

Samantha's achievements are a testament to her hard work and dedication to her craft. She is constantly pushing herself to learn more and take on new challenges. Her passion for technology and coding, along with her desire to help others, has made her an inspiration to many in the tech community. She sums it up, “I am a positive member of the community, always encouraging people to try their best, try something new, or just try in general. I've personally connected one-on-one with many hackers, organizers, and mentors.” As she continues to pursue her MLH and hacking passions, it is clear that Samantha will be an integral part of her community and will inspire others to do the same.