Technology
Hackathon Guide 2020: Learn All About Hackathon Events
What is a “Hackathon”?
All across the world, hackathons are hosted by both corporations and students who are passionate about technology, education, and building.
Even absolute beginners can get involved – I, myself, got hooked on Computer Science while attending my first hackathon with no prior experience.
Contrary to what the name suggests, hackathons don’t involve “hacking.” Conversely, hackathons are make-a-thons that take place over the span of a few days. During the event, creative, motivated people of all backgrounds, ages, and experience levels come together to turn their ideas into reality.
Though the word “hack” implies breaking into systems and possibly doing something illegal, the “hack” in a hackathon refers to the project itself. Projects can segue from idea to actualization within as little as 24 hours. In this sense, the “hack” is a newly fleshed out idea – the code will not always be the cleanest, but it will provide insight as to how the idea can be further implemented.
Hackathon Term Disambiguation
- Hackathon: A codefest where hacks are put together by hackers, a portmanteau of “hack” and “makeathon”
- Hacking: “Hacking” is the action of putting a project together, not illegally breaking into systems
- Hack: The “hack” is the project itself, ranging from a VR game to a machine-learning piano keyboard and beyond
- Hackers: The term “hackers” refers to the hackathon’s attendees who are putting together projects
Learn Content for Hackathons
Many hackathons will host a series of workshops to kick off the event. There are workshops for those with no experience, as well as for experienced developers.
For example, VandyHacks at Vanderbilt University provides beginner introductions for topics such as web development and app building, but also offers more advanced topics, such as natural language processing and AR and VR usage. Many hackathons will also have mentors available throughout the event who can help participants with particular technologies and programming languages.
Hackathons are opportunities for communities to come together and bring their creative potential into expression. Learning from others is arguably the most fulfilling part of the process. The projects that come out of hackathons are manifestations of the ability for anybody, from any background, to build and create. The events themselves are a great way to learn how to code and how to develop ideas outside of the classroom.
Prepare for Hackathons
Experience is not required to participate and excel at hackathons. Many winners of previous hackathons have been teams that were composed of first-time hackers from varying schools.
Last year at VandyHacks, the grand prize winner was a hardware-based hack that was able to track where people were in a store through sound data. Even more impressive than the hack was the winners’ backgrounds: none of them knew each other before attending VandyHacks, proving they were a truly “hacked” together team.
Picking up some of the aforementioned skills, as well as acquiring foundational experience and securing app ideas could help anybody looking to rapidly ramp up at any future hackathon.
People do not necessarily have to come with ideas, but they should come prepared to learn, meet people, and build! Hackathons are all about connecting with people in a space where interaction is typically mediated over digital communication.
Form Teams at a Hackathon
There is no need to come to a hackathon with a predetermined team. While it’s arguably easier to start working together if you already know your team, hackathons are all about diverse, new people, of different backgrounds, combining their ideas to create something they like. As a result, hackathons typically host brainstorming and team-finding sessions that simultaneously help people begin work on projects and match up groups of people.
For example, a team with an idea to form a web application that helps people manage their pet needs might need a “backend” or a “frontend” team member. The backend is essentially the bulk of where the application does its calculations. The frontend is the appearance of a web app and is responsible for connecting the results of the backend to the rest of the app in a way that it’s accessible for users.
Not everybody needs to know how to program to make a successful project. In fact, diverse backgrounds are excellent for making a team. A hackathon team made up of graphic designers, project managers, or other titles can definitely be successful.
Our aforementioned hypothetical team may be really passionate about creating a database about pet needs to quickly connect users to the information they need, but is unsure of how they want to design or display it.
This team would need a frontend person to program the visual side to make their app easy to read and access. It could very well be the other way around, as well – the team may have a great design in mind but needs someone that’s more passionate and skilled in writing the backend. Hackathons are all about learning new things and trying on new hats. In the suit, it is common to form teams of people from different backgrounds simply to experiment with new roles.
Cool Projects that Come Out of Hackathons
Hackathons can be data visualizations, games, teaching tools, and applications that solve problems. Some apps that I’ve personally seen offer free eye tests using machine learning and computer vision, music games, and hardware to enhance businesses.
Others software projects include social media mobile apps designed for both Android and iOS operating systems. Innovation is embedded throughout technology, and hackathons are manifestations of creative energy.
Hackathons are sometimes themed towards a specific goal, such as open-source or social good. These types of projects often aim to solve a problem in the world, benefiting others through technology. Other hackathons, such as those hosted by video game companies, are meant for people who are passionate about a certain product and wish to improve it.
Devpost has many projects that were submitted to hackathons across the world. Many of these projects are open-sourced on GitHub, a platform for coders to make their code visible for anyone to see. Here, you can see the results of peoples’ creativity, energy, and time during a hackathon.
Other Activities at Hackathons
There are tons of mini-events that organizers create for their attendees. From karaoke to scavenger hunts, there are plenty of things to do other than hack!
People at hackathons are the best resources to understand the variety of activities that the hackathon provides. Other attendees are oftentimes excellent resources for those of you who are aspiring careers in the Computer Science field, simply looking to debug particularly tricky bits of code, and also wish to make friends and mentors.
What Makes a Successful Hackathon?
Learning! Producing just a minimum viable product, or MVP is an incredible achievement. MVPs are essentially a proof-of-concept of your idea and are used all the time in the actual software development process. Computer programmers are always making incremental changes, and hackathons are excellent ways to get initial knowledge about a topic in which people have interests.
Even after the event ends, the problem-solving techniques learned through debugging challenging problems amid hackathon projects can continue to be useful in fields beyond and beyond computer programming.
Tips for Your First Hackathon
- Don’t stress!
- Ask people for help. Organizers, mentors, and sponsors are all here to help you succeed. After all, everybody was in the same beginner state at some point.
- Google anything and everything, and feel free to use Wikipedia! Oftentimes, someone else will have had the exact same problem at some point in life, and it’s probably on StackOverflow
- Have fun!
What Do You Bring?
- Laptop
- Mobile devices
- Chargers
- Water bottle
- Headphones
- Pillow
- Sleeping bag (certain hackathons have a sleeping room and/or provide sleeping bags)
Hackathon Logistics
Hackathons can be anywhere from local universities, high schools, and corporations to purely virtual spaces.
Typically, hackathons are completely free! The spirit of hackathons is to provide everybody with a shot at making whatever they want. Food, swag, and prizes are all at no cost to hackers. The only potential costs are transportation to the hackathon, though many hackathons offer travel reimbursements, as well.
Organize a Hackathon
If there are no hackathons in the surrounding region, the best move for you may be to organize a hackathon! Several organizations help new budding hackathons in the form of funding, workshops, and assistance.
For a comprehensive guide that breaks down all of the portions that we couldn’t cover in this article, check out this step-by-step hackathon guide. There’s tons of information on how to attract sponsorship, how to cultivate a community, and prepare potential attendees for hackathons.
Get started and good luck!
This article originally appeared on junilearning.com.
Technology
WhatsApp Introduces Web Calling, Call Transfer, QuickHD Features
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
WhatsApp has been updated with a web calling feature, allowing users to now make and receive audio and video calls, both one-on-one and group, directly from WhatsApp Web.
A notice from the Meta-owned messaging platform disclosed that this feature works without the need to download any app.
It was disclosed that this update was made to WhatsApp to make it easier for users to make calls wherever they are and on whatever device, phone or laptop.
Users will have access to features available on their other devices, including screen sharing, reactions, and a dedicated Calls tab with full call history and favourites, all from their browsers.
WhatsApp noted that calls from this feature are end-to-end encrypted, with no time limits and at no cost, as it is the same private experience they expect from the platform.
WhatsApp has also been embedded with easy call transfer, enabling the movement of an active group call from one device to another without hanging up. Users can seamlessly transfer calls to WhatsApp Web or Desktop when they arrive home to collaborate on a larger screen – or vice versa.
The platform further said it now has QuickHD, which allows for an improved video experience at the beginning of a call. With QuickHD, users can now enjoy high-definition video immediately in the very first few seconds of the call.
In addition, it has launched noise suppression to remove the background noise around callers so their voices come through clearly to the person on the other end, even in loud or busy environments. This can be managed at any time in in-call settings.
WhatsApp said these features are rolling out gradually and will be available to everyone soon, expressing its desire to make WhatsApp calling simpler to use.
Technology
Modded Hosting With Reliable Backups: Biome Types Guide
Modded Minecraft worlds take weeks to build. Custom biomes, terraformed landscapes, established bases — losing any of it to a corrupted chunk or a failed update is devastating. Backups aren’t optional for modded servers. They’re essential.
Modded hosting with reliable backups protects everything players have built across every minecraft biome types the pack introduces — without requiring manual backup routines that nobody remembers to run.
Why Modded Worlds Are More Vulnerable to Data Loss
Vanilla Minecraft worlds are relatively stable. Modded worlds have more ways to break. Mod updates can corrupt chunk data if block IDs change. Crashes during chunk generation leave partial files. Automated farms that run while no players are online can cause chunk-level issues over time.
Biomes added by mods require extra care. Changing biome mods later can cause unexpected problems. If the old biome data no longer exists, Minecraft may not know how to read parts of the world anymore. The Minecraft Wiki explains that every generated chunk keeps its own biome information in the save. Modded biomes require their mod to be present to load correctly — removing the mod without migrating chunks first causes permanent data loss in those areas.
Minecraft Biome Types: What Mods Add
People often focus on giant mountains or rare structures, but smaller biome changes matter too. A carefully designed minecraft grass biome can completely change the appearance of an entire region. Once that combines with improved forests, rivers, and mountain generation, exploration naturally takes longer because there’s almost always another interesting place nearby. There’s a massive difference once biome mods are installed. Biomes O’ Plenty alone adds over 80 biomes. Terralith adds another 95 plus, although it still builds worlds using Minecraft’s regular generation system rather than a custom one. Oh The Biomes You’ll Go adds tropical and fantasy biomes not found in either.
Each of these creates a richer world to explore — and more unique terrain to protect. A player who spends two sessions exploring and settling in a modded cherry blossom grove loses something irreplaceable if that chunk gets corrupted without a backup.
Content creator and modpack player Noxite has described modded biome exploration as one of the most memorable experiences in the game — “every new biome feels like discovering a location that exists only in your world.” Backups protect that discovery.
Many players only start thinking about backups after something goes wrong. It’s surprisingly easy for a modded world to develop problems. Maybe the server restarts halfway through chunk generation, or a mod update changes world data in a way the old save no longer understands. Even experienced server owners don’t get through every update without issues. Sometimes everything looks fine until someone explores a new biome and discovers broken chunks. At that point, having a recent backup is usually the simplest solution instead of trying to repair damaged terrain piece by piece.
What a Reliable Backup System Looks Like for Modded Servers
For modded worlds, backup requirements go beyond vanilla minimums:
- Daily automated backups — at minimum; hourly for active community servers
- Full world backups — not just player data; entire world folder including all dimensions
- Pre-update snapshots — automatic backup triggered before any mod or server update
- Offsite storage — backups stored separately from the server to survive hardware failure
- Easy restoration — one-click restore to a specific backup without technical support

Protecting Every Biome You’ve Explored
Minecraft biomes wiki entries for modded biomes often include notes about save compatibility across versions. The community’s experience is consistent: mod updates break worlds more often than player actions do. Regular backups are the only reliable protection.
Choose modded hosting with reliable backups that runs automatically, stores multiple restore points, and makes restoration simple. The time investment in setting up proper backups is always less than the time lost rebuilding after a preventable data loss event.
Technology
5 Ways AI is Transforming Consumer Intelligence and Analytics
The rules have changed. How companies actually know their customers — really know them — looks almost nothing like it did ten years ago. Old-school research methods are drowning. Too slow, too narrow, too dependent on humans manually stitching together datasets that have already gone cold. Markets shift in days now, not quarters. And the cost of a slow read on consumer behavior keeps climbing. This isn’t just a tooling upgrade. The underlying logic of how businesses decide what to build, what to charge, and who to reach has been gutted and rebuilt from scratch. Staying reactive isn’t a strategy anymore. It’s a liability.
1. Real-Time Data Processing and Pattern Recognition
Consumer intelligence used to run on stale numbers. Analysts dug into data weeks — sometimes months — after whatever actually happened. Modern AI kills that lag. Entirely. These systems chew through enormous volumes of behavioral data on the fly, surfacing patterns that human teams couldn’t find in the same timeframe with ten times the headcount. Machine learning algorithms can process millions of customer interactions, transactions, and behavioral signals simultaneously — pulling clean signal out of what would otherwise be undifferentiated noise. A retailer can track sentiment across social media, reviews, and support tickets right now, catching a brewing problem or an emerging trend in hours rather than weeks. Inventory shifts, pricing moves, message pivots — all of it happens before a trend fully crystallizes. That’s a different game entirely.
2. Predictive Analytics and Consumer Behavior Forecasting
Here’s what actually changed: AI stops consumer intelligence from being a backward-looking exercise. Instead of cataloguing what customers already did, companies can now forecast what they’re likely to do next — and with striking accuracy. Advanced ML models thread together historical patterns and live behavioral signals to predict churn, flag high-value prospects, and project demand across entire product lines. A telecom company can spot which customers are quietly drifting toward a competitor before they ever make the switch — and intervene first. That’s not a marginal improvement. It’s a fundamentally different posture. Resources flow toward the segments that actually matter, rather than spreading thin across the whole base and hoping something sticks.
3. Personalization at Scale
Consumers expect personalized experiences. Full stop. Meeting that expectation at scale — for millions of people at once — is simply beyond what human analysts and traditional segmentation can deliver. Machine learning models read individual purchase histories, browsing patterns, preferences, and demographic signals to build dynamic profiles that drive product recommendations, custom messaging, and tailored interfaces. When building and refining these individualized profiles, marketers who need to enrich their first-party data with verified behavioral signals rely on audience data providers to ensure their models are trained on accurate, high-quality consumer information. An e-commerce platform can serve each visitor a genuinely different experience — different layouts, different offers, different content — all built around that visitor’s unique fingerprint. Conversion lifts. Lifetime value climbs. People respond when recommendations actually fit their lives, not just the average of everyone else’s.
4. Sentiment Analysis and Brand Perception Monitoring
Knowing how consumers feel about a brand means wading through unstructured mess. Reviews, comment threads, support tickets, social posts, video captions — none of it parses cleanly by hand at any useful speed. Natural language processing handles it. NLP systems automatically scan text-based content across digital channels, classifying sentiment as positive, negative, or neutral while bucketing feedback by topic, product feature, or customer segment. An automaker can track online conversations about a specific reliability concern and catch it before it snowballs into a full-blown reputation crisis. No waiting for quarterly surveys. No lag. Brand perception monitoring becomes continuous — and decisions about product fixes, messaging shifts, or service interventions get grounded in real signal rather than gut instinct.
5. Competitive Intelligence and Market Positioning Analysis
Competitive intelligence used to mean manual tracking, sprawling spreadsheets, and perpetually incomplete pictures. AI automates the entire collection-and-analysis loop. ML models watch competitor pricing moves, product launches, promotions, and messaging shifts across digital channels — then stack that data against a company’s own position. Gaps surface. Threats register earlier. A financial services firm can monitor exactly which themes competitors are pushing on social media and which ones are actually generating engagement — then sharpen their own positioning accordingly. Real-time visibility into competitive dynamics means strategic calls about where to invest, which markets to enter, and how to stand apart in crowded categories aren’t made blind anymore.
Conclusion
What AI has done to consumer intelligence isn’t incremental. It’s structural. Real-time processing of massive datasets. Forecasting future behavior instead of autopsying the past. Personalization that reaches millions, not hundreds. Continuous sentiment monitoring. Automated competitive tracking. None of these were realistic options a decade ago. They are now. Companies that wire these capabilities into their core operations make faster, sharper decisions — ones that show up directly in revenue, satisfaction scores, and market share. Those that don’t will keep falling further behind. And the gap between organizations that wield these tools well and those still grinding through traditional approaches? It’s not closing. It’s widening every quarter.


