🤓hackINSAN 2024
My experience as a mentor and an adjudicator for a hackathon for the first time
Hi there! I haven't been as active as I hoped for due to uni stuff and life in general. But here I am, sharing (more like yapping) about my experience as both mentor and judge for hackINSAN, Malaysia's first ever hackathon that is 100% run by high school students.
This program was conducted by high school students of Kolej Permata Insan (KPI), USIM. Hence, the name, hackINSAN. This program was held on the 6th and the adjudication commenced on the 7th, so it was a 24-hour hackathon. My teammates for CTF-hackathon, Akram and Azfar were selected to be a part of the hackathon as mentor and judge.
Day 1 - Opening Ceremony
During registration, I got a sticker label according to my role that day - which is as mentor. Then, we collected our registration kits and ushered to the mentor-adjudicator waiting room for us to chill before a short briefing by the program director. We get to know other mentors and found out that we're the only student mentors there (nervously sweats). Then, we headed to the opening ceremony.
The opening ceremony kicks off with speech from the director, Yahaya Basirun, who represented Malaysia in a hackathon last year in the US. He observed that they were not many hackathons that is open to high schoolers, so he had the idea to bring the US-concept hackathon to Malaysia. Basically, they provide the venue for the teams to build, with free flow snacks and meals provided and a small gaming area to chill. I was impressed!
Next, there were sharing sessions by sponsors and also Inbaraj, the founder of JomHack. I was excited to see him in real life! I first knew him through my participation in RHB GYHO (Get Your Hack On) in 2023.
Mentoring Session
During the mentoring session, the concept was open mentoring - mentors are free to walk around the participants' tables and offer mentorship that are within their field. We got our kits and merchs from the organisers which were so cool!
To my knowledge, each teams received different problem statements, which are 4 in total, from the 4 sponsors for the program, which are Memo Agility, Pemuda Gema, Madani IT and Summit Features. One of the sponsors encouraged the use of drones and IoT in their solution, which had me a bit curious on seeing how the participants plan to incorporate them.
During the mentoring sessions, I got to know so many participants from different background. Some are high school students from MRSM TGB, KPI itself and the rest are university students from various unis like UiTM, Xiamen University and also USIM.Most of them are first timers but their ideas, especially from the high school students, blown me away. I even met @TechyJannah, the self taught iOS developer at 16! She was so cool and her projects had me wonderstruck. I wished her all the best in her endeavour ✨
Day 2 - Adjudication Session
On the 7th, for the judging session, the judges were put in groups of 3-4 people. My group consisted of my hackathon and CTF teammate, Akram Zaki and Jerry Chong, another fellow judge for the hackathon. We got to judge teams with Madani IT's problem statement, which is, one of it encouraging the use of drones to boost daily life's efficiency. We had to judge according to a few criterias given and each team gets a 5 min pitching session before QnAs and adjudication from us to determine the top teams for the finalists adjudication. Each jury team was given around 16 teams to adjudicate and we have around 2 hours to go through all the teams.
We saw some teams with very promising ideas and surprisingly, they are high school students! I was very impressed with not only their ideas, but how they pitch themselves. This was their first time! If I didn't know better, I'd say they're seasoned hackers. After their QnAs, I gave them points for future improvements the best I can, along with Akram and Jerry. Overall, each team gave their utmost performance and I am very impressed with their solutions.
During the adjudication round, the organiser held a small sharing where they invited Malaysia's youngest software engineer, Akmal Hazim to share about his experience. I get to listen to his talk a bit while adjudicating and his journey is very impressive.
After that, it was turn to tally up the marks for all teams for the top teams to the finals. I was proud to see the two teams I adjudicated managed to move to the finals round.
Finalists Adjudication and Closing Ceremony
During the final adjudication, there were a total of 9 judges consist of the sponsors and judges. The two teams that I adjudicated came up 2nd and 3rd overall. After that, the closing ceremony. The ceremony starts with awards for top 3s according to each problem statements then two special awards for Best Entrepreneur and Best Rookie award. We had a photography session then everyone heads home for the night.
Personal POV
Overall, the program was a huge success for me. Huge thanks to the organisers for offering me the chance to become a mentor and also a judge for this hackathon, despite only joining a few myself. To think that a group of high schoolers manage to cater to a total of 200+ team participations with very few hiccups is impressive in itself. I hope there will be more initiatives to nurture these promising young minds! I learned so many new things through the more seasoned mentors and judges on how to be a better developer. Plus, I am content that I had the chance to give back to the community this way. The satisfaction outweighs the exhaustion I felt for the entire weekend. Definitely a very memorable experience for me and I can't see what the future holds for me and also to these youngsters. Fly high ✨
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