HackBCA returns in April
HACKENSACK -- HackBCA, the hackathon for high school students, returns in April, with more a focus on beginners.
Kenneth Rhee, the 18-year-old director of the hackathon, said many beginners came to the competition at Bergen County Academies in previous years and weren't sure what to do.
Though all the participants are high school students, most have some experience coding. For those who don't, HackBCA is running a new program this year called Path.
Beginners who take part in the hackathon can take workshops that follow three paths: web application development, iOS development or code for good, a way to use programming to solve problems.
"By the end they can have a credible project they can present to our judges," Rhee said.
The judges this year are Shlomo Dalezman, top engineer at The Muse, a career search site; Cindy Gallop, founder and CEO of If We Ran the World, a website that helps people complete "microactions;" Tea Ho, a product designer at DonorsChoose.org, a site that helps support teachers; and Kate Machtiger, a senior analyst at Luminary Labs, a consulting company.
High school hackathon focuses on girls
Chris Wanstrath, cofounder and CEO of Github, is giving the keynote speech and Tom Lehman, cofounder and CEO of Genius, is emcee.
470 hackers took part in HackBCA in 2015. Rhee hopes to have 550 this year, as well as 50 mentors.
HackBCA is also making an effort to recruit as many girl hackers as it can to participate.
"Part of our mission is to defuse the gender inequality in tech and computer science, so we're trying to accept as many girls as we can and reaching out to many different organizations," Rhee said.
Through a sponsorship from Intel, HackBCA is also offering a scholarship to 30 students from underprivileged communities. They'll receive free laptops and transportation to the hackathon.
HackBCA is scheduled to start April 2 at 3 p.m. It will run for a little more than 24 hours.
Myles Ma may be reached at mma@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MylesMaNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.