deltaHacks returns for third edition

January 4, 2017 Kevin Browne 0 Comments

If you haven’t heard of it before, deltaHacks is an amazing 500-person hackathon that takes place at McMaster University each year. The next deltaHacks will be taking place this January 28th-29th on McMaster University campus.

What makes deltaHacks special is the focus: “We hope to inspire students to hack for positive changes that align with their passions – whether it’s environment, health, inequality, education, etc. And hence the name “delta” – as “Δ” stands for change.”

Compared to some other hackathons where you might see the 500th “order a beer from your smartphone app” (which is admittedly kinda neat in its own right), at deltaHacks you see people working on projects to help people by solving real-world problems. On top of that, the technical depth of the solutions tends to be a little better than most hackathons too.

So for example the winner of last year’s deltaHacks was a team that built an app that uses x-ray images to diagnose femoroacetabular impingement (FAI). That project got turned into Deltanostix, a company now being incubated in The Forge.

First-place winners (FAI diagnosis app); photo by Jin Lee

In addition to attendees, this year’s deltaHacks is looking for 1) volunteers to help them run the event, 2) mentors to help teams workthrough challenges and provide advice, 3) sponsors. If you’re a tech company in Hamilton looking to get early access at an amazing pool of young, up-and-coming, motivated talent, this is a great event to get involved with in some capacity!

deltaHacks is organized by student group PhaseOne (formally know as HackItMac), easily the most engaged student group I’ve ever seen (and having been on school campuses my entire adult life, I’ve seen a lot). You’ve gotta love their mission statement:

“We are a vast team of students who share a similar dream: to make McMaster and the Hamilton area one of the biggest tech communities in Canada. We want to foster an environment that is constantly generating great ideas, startups or just talent. We want to help companies realize their full potential by providing the creative & technical talent and resources they need. We are PhaseOne of something bigger than all of us.”