I was amazed by the tags and posts of people on LinkedIn who had won hackathons. So, when I came across the 24-hour offline hackathon "hackCBS", also known as Delhi University's First-ever Hackathon-cum-conference, I knew I had to give it a shot ✊🏻. I registered for the event and was thrilled to find out that my resume had been shortlisted for participation.
With two of my friends by my side, we set off to the venue, ready to take on the competition. My friends had participated in a hackathon before, but it was a relatively small event with only 30 to 40 teams in total. So they thought that this one would be just as small and that our chances of winning would be easy.
But as soon as we arrived at the venue,😵 we were shocked by the sheer number of students there. It was immediately clear to us that this was a big-level hackathon and winning here would be tough. Even we met people coming from different states too. However, we had a plan ready and were determined to give it our all.
When we asked the officials, we were told that around 450 teams were participating in the hackathon. This level of participation was due to the fact that it was supported by MLH.
The opening ceremony was truly inspiring. We met and heard from some great founders and developers and learned about the current state of technology. Hearing from the CEO of Permissionless was particularly amazing.
Be Permissionless When It Comes To Learning!😎
After the ceremony, we got to lunch and had our rooms set for the development phase. We were divided into groups of 10 to 15 teams in a single room. We started our research on our idea but soon found out that it had already been built by a big company. So, we had to drop the idea and think of a new one.
That's when we came up with the problem of keeping track of referrals on LinkedIn and Twitter. Most people who are placed in a company often get asked for referrals for hiring. We realized that it gets very difficult to keep track of these if the number of referrals increases. So we created a website where people can ask for referrals and people who are placed can give referrals in a very organized manner. The person can choose the company, designation, and city of office. They would have to add their LinkedIn profile and resume, which would be reviewed by the referral provider.
As the hackathon progressed, there were 3 rounds of mentoring in intervals of 5 hours. In these mentoring sessions, mentors came to see what we were building and suggest and improvise solutions, and ask rapid questions.
During the first round, we built a basic prototype of our website. The mentors asked us what we were doing extra, or what was the main USP of our platform. They pointed out that on LinkedIn we can also get referrals using DMs and LinkedIn premium. Most importantly, they asked us what was the motivation for a person to give their time in reviewing resumes. We thought about this and came up with a plan that we would provide a very nice and distraction-free platform for placed people moreover, we can reward people for reviewing resumes by giving them headphones, mac mini, and speakers for reviewing 10 resumes in a month as an appraisal. Our mentors liked this approach and told us more that people get incentives from the company too if the referred person gets selected for the job role.
Then for the next 2 mentor rounds, we took insights from the mentors and made some improvisations. Finally, the time for submission came, in the judging, it was like some judges approached all the participants to judge them, they came to us but they didn't find something out of the box idea. So we didn't win 😅 but yes we learnt a lot in the process.
The hackathon was a great learning experience for us. We met a lot of people with diverse skills and backgrounds and had the opportunity to connect with like-minded individuals and potential collaborators. We also developed new skills and improved existing ones, such as coding, problem-solving, and teamwork. The hackathon also exposed us to new technologies, ideas evolving around the world of tech and tools that we may not have had a chance to work with before.
Participating in hackCBS was an absolutely incredible and exhilarating experience. If you ever have the opportunity to take part in an offline hackathon, I highly recommend that you seize it with both hands and make the most of it! It's truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that you don't want to miss out on. 💻🚀🎉
Although, I still believe in the idea of our project and want it to go for real production. It may help a lot of freshers 🫵🏻 to get placement opportunities in their dream companies. here are some of its references to the working model we built...
That's all from my side for this experience blog. Hope you enjoy reading it. And If you have gone to offline hackathons share your views and experience below 🤗.