Hacking a University

The word “hack” has taken on a variety of meanings over the last few years. We read of efforts of malicious, unapproved entry into computer networks, sometimes for the thrill of outwitting security measures, sometimes to vandalize sites, sometimes to destroy the network’s functioning. This is what many of us know as “hacking.” “Hacking” a problem, on the other hand, is a high-intensity, focused effort to tackle a specific problem, often by incorporating technology. A hackathon is an organized gathering of this second kind of “hacking,” challenging teams of hackers to create within a constrained amount of time, the rudiments of apps or products to solve real problems.

Georgetown hosted its first hackathon last weekend, organized by Georgetown University Information Services (UIS) and h.innovation (h.georgetown.edu), with sponsorship from several technology firms.

The teams tackled a variety of real problems — the administration’s inability to update forecasts for enrollment in courses in coming years, the inability of students to learn about career decision-making of alumni who took a similar curriculum as theirs, the difficulty of students to learn about courses throughout the university that are relevant to their interests, the difficulty of finding others on campus whose entrepreneurial skills complement those of a student aspiring to build a startup, the difficulty of finding the events at Georgetown of greatest interest to a student, and the inability for off-campus students and Georgetown neighbors to have mutually rewarding interactions.

Interdisciplinary teams worked for 36 hours on their chosen problem. For some, this involved doing a quick survey of what students wanted; for others they quickly learned what data resources existed at Georgetown pertinent to the problem they were solving. Many proposed building solutions on top of the mobile platform that Georgetown launched earlier this year.

The spirit of the hackathon was to inspire teams to iterate on ideas as they endeavored to produce a working prototype of a solution. Some teams actually accessed real data; some coded out fully functional programs, and many designed wireframe outlines of an app. The creativity of the solutions was impressive. The energy of those involved was inspiring.

Imagine, for example, an app (Magis) that provided a snapshot of the “whole student,” capturing not only what your major was and the classes you took, but also the actual skills and passions you had accumulated. These skills and passions could have developed from a classroom, a club or an internship and now can be organized as data to align to your career goals or opportunities.

Or imagine, an app (Gathr) that hacked “the overcommunication and overabundance of university broadcast emails” in which you would receive a single consolidated digest of curated emails about classes, events, and clubs that were relevant to your respective passions and interests – pulled through University databases.

I look forward to the university acting on some of the cool ideas proposed. We have a real opportunity to build a better experience for faculty and students.