City Skyline: Best UX Design (2)

This prize is for the hack that incorporates the best UX design.

Prizes:
1st place: Fujifilm Instax Mini 11 Instant Camera (per team member)
2nd place: $50 Apple gift card (per team member)

Friendly Neighbors: Best Service Hack (2)

This prize is for the best social good hack that focuses on giving back to any community of your choice.

Prizes:
1st place: $100 UberEats gift card (per team member)
2nd place: Urban Outfitters mini fridge (per team member)

Subway Surfers: Best Travel/Transportation Hack (2)

This prize is for the best hack that relates to traveling and/or transportation.

Prizes:
1st place: Hardside carry-on spinner suitcase (per team member)
2nd place: belt bag (per team member)

Reaching High: Best Beginner Hack (Middle or High School) (2)

Is this your first time attending a hackathon or creating a hack? We want to encourage all first-time hackers to submit their creations! At least one member of the team has to be a first-time hacker. Team members submitting for this category must be in middle or high school. We're excited to hear about what you learned and what you came up with for your first hack!

Prizes:
1st place: The North Face jester backpack (per team member) + MLH Fellowship Fast Track Interview and MLH Winner Pins

2nd place: Technica-branded Hydro Flask (per team member)

Reaching Higher: Best Beginner Hack (College/General) (2)

Is this your first time attending a hackathon or creating a hack? We want to encourage all first-time hackers to submit their creations! This should be the first hackathon for at least one member of the team. Ideally, this must be the first hackathon for all or almost all team members. All members are at least 18 years old. Participants should have limited to no prior coding knowledge. We're excited to hear about what you learned and what you came up with for your first hack!​

Prizes:
1st place: $100 Amazon gift card (per team member) + MLH Fellowship Fast Track Interview and MLH Winner Pins

2nd place: Neon room sign (per team member)

Best Startup Track Hack

The best hack from Technica's Startup Track.

Prize:
Fire stick (per team member) - sponsored by Contrary Capital!

Research Track Projects (9)

Only submit your hack here if you are part of the official Research track, led by the UMD Iribe Initiative for Inclusion and Diversity in Computing! Research track participants are not eligible to submit their project to other prize categories.

Best Hack for Recruiting Public Servants - Accenture Federal Services

The U.S. Federal government is facing a looming catastrophe with nearly 6.5x more employees over the age of 50 as under 30. As the older population begins to retire, there is a need to find creative ways to inspire the next generation of public servants. We’re looking for your perspective on what can get the next generation excited about joining the public service, and how to make it easier for them to find the job and mission they are passionate about. Come up with your own hack to help solve this problem or use the following prompts as inspiration:
* Build a digital assistant/concierge (web or mobile) that can help prospects through the recruitment process. Or maybe a way to find a mentor who works within the federal government to ask career advice.
* Build a website or app that allows prospects to create a profile highlighting what they are passionate about, like working outdoors or building the next Mars rover, and having that provide suggestions for which agency/job would match them best.
* Got design skills? Find an agency of your choice with a website that could use a refresh and build a new brand.
* Interested in blockchain? Develop a blockchain-based app that can act as a “badge” for federal employees to easily switch between jobs.
* Develop an algorithm or application that can help remove bias from the recruiting process.

Think about what would excite you to start a career in public service.

Prize: $100 gift card (per team member)

Best Hack Promoting Education or Public Health - Bloomberg

Prize: Polaroid camera (per team member)

Most “Ever Vigilant” Hack for Social Media - CACI International

Description: Create a solution that will monitor network traffic via social media for the purpose of identifying system-wide weaknesses, make recommendations for security upgrades, and maintain a proactive stance against security breaches.

Prize: $100 Amazon gift card (per team member)

Best Financial Hack - Capital One

Create the best financial hack; anything involving money qualifies.

Prize: $250 Amazon gift card (per team member)

Best Inclusive Future Hack - Cisco Talos

At Cisco Talos, we want to bring a more inclusive future into reality. Helping ensure that all will be included in the future will help raise everyone to new heights. Show us your hacks that include bringing technology into a more inclusive, accessible, and empowering space for all!

Prize: JBL Clip speaker, Stanley Quencher tumbler, and Talos swag (including blanket, beanie, UA sweatshirt)

Best Hack for Adulting - Fannie Mae (2)

No one wants to live in their parent's basement forever. There are many factors that let you know when you are financially ready to move out and eventually own your own home. For the Fannie Mae challenge, build a tool to process homebuyer data that helps guide prospective first-time buyers through owning their first home.

Use the data provided by Fannie to validate your app and build a user interface to test the app with your own mocked-up, homebuyer data.

As an extra challenge, based on the outcome, provide a list of steps to improve the homebuyer's ability to buy a home.

You are free to use any programming language or framework to build your app.

Prizes:
1st place: $125 gift card (per team member)
2nd place: $75 gift card (per team member)

Best Pedagogical App that Sparks Innovation & Learning - GenSpark (3)

Create an application that will infuse cutting-edge pedagogical techniques, any format is allowed but applications with a native/web framework are preferred.

Prizes:
1st place: Oculus VR headset (per team)
2nd place: Magnetic wireless portable charger (per team member)
3rd place: Swag bag + $20 gift card (per team member)

Best AI Artwork - Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab

Who says that machines can’t be creative? Whether intentionally generated by a computer, created accidentally as a byproduct of another project, or created by humans and AI working together, any type of artistic creation will qualify—the only requirement is that AI must have in some way been involved in the creation process. We are open to accepting a variety of media formats, including but not limited to: digital imagery, music, 2D/3D art, sculptures, animations, AR/VR, and interactive exhibits.

Prize: Wacom Tablet (per team member)

Best Hack for Social Good - JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Already have an idea? Great! Hack on any social good topic that you’re passionate about!

If you don’t have a specific idea, feel free to respond to the following challenge: Develop a web or mobile app that would help increase the number or capacity of women entrepreneurs and small business owners.

If you are looking for some ideas, you can consider one or more of the following questions:
• How can local business associations and local governments better reach and encourage first-time women entrepreneurs and small business owners?
• How can we create a community among women entrepreneurs and small business owners so they can share best practices, resources, and mentorship opportunities with each other?
• How can governments, venture capitalists, banks, and other financial institutes better support women entrepreneurs and small business owners with access to capital?

Prize: 2nd generation Apple Airpods

Best Data Visualization - Optiver (3)

Create a data science model that challenges how society operates. Think outside of the box. Let’s see if you can create something to change the way we view things today.

Prizes:
1st Place: $500 Amazon gift card (split among team members)
2nd Place: $300 Amazon gift card (split among team members)
3rd Place: $200 Amazon gift card (split among team members)

Best IoT Product Hack - Qualcomm

Make going to school easier! Come up with something that restores a work-life balance, or helps you get in that groove. Anything that helps you stay on track to living a healthy, balanced life!

Prize: JBL Clip 4 speaker (blue or black), cell phone key ring, stickers, and Qualcomm-branded swag (sweater, socks, North Face Backpack, t-shirt) (per team member)

Best Hack that Benefits Immigrants or International Students - Remitly (3)

Remitly's vision is to transform the lives of immigrants and their families by providing the most trusted financial services on the planet. We’d love to see your ideas for products or services that benefit these communities.

Prizes:
1st place: $50 Amazon gift card + Remitly swag (per team member)
2nd place: $40 Amazon gift card + Remitly swag (per team member)
3rd place: $25 Amazon gift card + Remitly swag (per team member)

Best Autonomy or Automation Hack - Shield AI

As an organization that develops artificial intelligence for autonomous systems, we spend a lot of time thinking about how computers and robots can assist with tasks that are monotonous, difficult, or even too dangerous for people to complete. This year, we want you to engineer an extremely useful or creative solution that automates an otherwise burdensome process. Bonus points if your solution incorporates machine learning or data science techniques!

Prize: AuKing nini projector (2022)

Best Hack for Connecting People - Sprout Social (2)

Prizes:
1st place: Raspberry pi (per team member)
2nd place: Snack box (per team member)

Best FinTech Hack - T. Rowe Price

Improve financial services or personal money management; judging criteria is creativity and usability.

Prize: Portable monitor

Best Use of an AI Model - Travelers

In the Insurance industry, data is at the core of what we do. Data provides important insights into our business, our customers, our company, and our systems. Data helps
inform decision-making at every level. In addition to the Insurance industry, technology solutions using artificial intelligence capabilities are being used to solve some of our most complex problems worldwide. In Insurance, we use AI to comb through data such as aerial
imagery to predict loss costs, identify hazards through predictive modeling of past losses, provide virtual assistant chat or Alexa self-service, and even analyze customer sentiment to improve our customer service. Our challenge is simple: design and build an artificial
intelligence model with data as the core element of your solution to help solve a business problem of your choice.

Your hack will be judged on the following criteria:
• How did data support the implementation of your solution – check out open source data sources available.
• Implementation of the idea (including user experience, AI design and code, data integration)
• Quality of the idea (including creativity, originality and fit with your target audience)
• Working prototype- how did you incorporate UX design?
• Professionalism of presentation and demo
• Potential impact on your target audience

Prize: Beats Solo3 wireless headsets (per team member)

Most Creative Data - Visionist Inc (2)

Use 2 weeks of twitter data for a project of your choice. Come to Visionist’s table to get the dataset (dataset available until 5PM)
1st Place Prize: $100 amazon gift card per team member
2nd Place Prize: Visionist T shirts

Best Domain Name from Domain.com

Register a .Tech domain name using Domain.com during the weekend for your chance to win a Domain.com branded backpack for you and each member of your team! Each team may submit one entry per person on the team. The more creative the domain the better!

Most Creative Use of Twilio - Major League Hacking

Twilio allows you to incorporate mobile messaging, phone calls and a ton of other awesome communication features right into your hackathon project using web service APIs. Are you building an e-commerce website and want to send text notifications or email confirmations once an order is completed? Or maybe your application needs to verify users based on their mobile numbers? Twilio makes all this possible and more. Build a hack that simplifies your life using any one of Twilio’s APIs for a chance to win!

NOTE: There will be no live demos for this challenge - please include a video in your submission to be considered for this prize!

Prize: GameGo Console and Twilio swag box (per team member)