Inaugural 24-Hour Hackathon Event Challenges University Students

Students used computer programming skills to solve industry challenges 

By Erin Garrett 

University of Mississippi students put their programming and problem-solving skills to the test April 6–7 during Hack Beta, the institution’s first 24-hour hackathon. 

Organized by computer science students, the competition allowed teams of students from all majors to work together to solve real-world challenges provided by industry partners with hopes of winning cash prizes. 

“A hackathon is typically a 24-hour event where participants work to innovate a product or solution that can be implemented in the real world,” said Larson Carter, sophomore computer science major and chair of the student organizing committee. “The partners provide challenges that they use in their everyday work environments, and the students have 24 hours to code an outside-the-box solution utilizing technology and programming.” 

The computer and information science department started planning for Hack Beta last year after seeing the success of students participating in other regional hackathons, said Yixin Chen, department chair. 

“We have quite a few students who have participated in hackathons at other places, and our department has sponsored their trips—they’ve won awards and are generally really interested in the events,” Chen said. “We thought, ‘Why not organize an event for our own students?’ and the feedback from our advisory board and industry partners was very positive.” 

Hack Beta benefited from longstanding industry partnerships the CIS department has cultivated, with Ergon, FedEx, CoreLogic and CSpire helping to plan and volunteer at the event. Other partners providing real-world scenarios and support for challenges included GitHub, Major League Hacking, and UM’s Institute for Data Science. 

“Ergon’s information technology department is proud to continue our relationship with Ole Miss as a sponsor of the Hack Beta Event,” said Jana Branham, executive vice president and chief information officer for Ergon. “Giving students the opportunity to solve real business challenges through innovation, coding and team collaboration challenges them to develop actionable business ideas which may not emerge in a traditional working environment.” 

The power of hackathons to create innovative solutions is well-documented, said Carter, a Jonesboro, Arkansas, native. One example is the messaging app GroupMe, which was created during a hackathon more than a decade ago. 

“It started as a solution for efficient messaging within a group and has since grown into a multi-billion-dollar company acquired by Microsoft,” Carter said. 

Hack Beta’s four challenges were: creating a mobile app to monitor campus network performance, developing a file-sharing project for Bluetooth or internet, working with provided hardware to build a secure data communication app, and manipulating a dataset in innovative ways. 

In addition to the hacking challenges, the event schedule included educational sessions led by students, faculty and industry mentors on topics like securing internships, resume prep and mock interviews.  

Chen emphasized the importance of the problem-solving skills students will develop through the hackathon experience—skills that are highly valued by employers. 

“The crucial skill to be successful at a hackathon or in the real world is problem-solving,” he said. “That’s something that employers will be looking for when students start their careers.” 

At the end of the 24-hours, the 13 teams of some 50 students submitted their final projects for judging, culminating in an awards ceremony. Prizes were awarded to the top teams in each challenge and an overall grand prize winner was selected from the top teams. 

The first-place overall award went to team “Syntax Error,” made up of computer science students James Kim, Christopher Doss, and Peter Van Ness. They developed a simple, yet effective way to send files locally to local households or school networks. The program is easy to interact with and use and does not require Bluetooth—a point of pride for the team. 

Hack Beta was so successful that the department is already planning a larger event in the fall. 

“For this spring event, we wanted to keep it limited to just Ole Miss students, but the fall hackathon will be open to participants from around the world,” Chen said. “Our goal is to grow the event to at least 400 to 450 participants.”