Are you ready to collaborate with like-minded individuals and be part of a tech-ready ecosystem?
Sponsorship Inquiries
Attend this Hackathon to showcase your skills as part of the amazing tech talent in Tennessee, network, and learn from like-minded individuals.
Challenge Themes
We will be asking participants turn bold ideas into practical solutions with challenges that matter to our community. The requirement is to use Oracle Cloud Infrastructure as part of the solution. You'll receive $500 worth of Oracle Cloud credits if you register for the hackathon before Monday October 12th.
The full challenge statements will be release during the information session - October 15.
More information will be released soon.
Participation
Hackathons are not just for programmers. In order for a group to succeed, it is most ideal to have a mix of people from diverse backgrounds and skillsets. We call it the 'Minimum Viable Team' - the smallest team required to achieve a specific purpose. Teams should have a minimum of 4 people and a maximum of 6 people. We encourage anyone wanting to to land their next role at a tech organization, or anyone passionate about helping the our local communities in Tennessee to come and join us!
Don't have a team? We'll host a networking happy hour at our Information Session on Thursday 15th October, and you'll have a chance to form teams on Saturday morning. If you don't have a team by 10am, we'll put you into a team and introduce you to your new team members via Slack.
Hipster
person who designs the prototype
Hacker
person who creates the prototype
Hustler
person who sells the product
Herder
person who facilitates and manages the team
What will happen?
Throughout the weekend, you will be faced with a series of activities to help you develop your solution for the judges. The outcome will be a presentation (pitch explaining why you worked on this) and a prototype (demonstration of the key feature you developed over the weekend). Many people go to Hackathons because it's about the 'tech', but we define that as the following steps of a Hackathon:
1
Networking
Find your team mates. We'll have activities to help you through this process.
2
Ideation
Develop creative ideas! We'll have mentors who will give you feedback.
3
Build
Create a really quick version of your solution and test it with your customers.
4
Hacking!!
Using the feedback, create your demo and presentation to pitch to our experienced judges.
Agenda
The Hackathon event is a hybrid event with the option to participate in-person at Vanderbilt University. If you are participating online, you need to have 1x person on your team present at the Final Showcase from 1-5pm. on Sunday. The expectation of the team is to develop:
- A feature for an existing business (working function)
- OR develop a new technology solution (new business idea from scratch)
We want all teams to use the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and we'll supply you with $500 credits. You can access the starter kit here to familiarize yourselves with the technology and tools. You must register before Monday 12th October to access this benefit. We will be holding 2x workshops on this during the hackathon.
Key attendance is expected for all participants - either in-person or online.
Hackathon Day One
Saturday, from 9-8pm
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Keynote Speaker
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Hackathon Logistics and Process
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Team Formation and Registration
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Workshops
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Mentoring Sessions
Information Session / Workshop
Thursday from 5:30-7pm
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An introduction to the Hackathon
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Challenge Statement Revealed
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Technology Upskilling Workshop
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Hackathon Tips and Tricks
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Networking
Hackathon Day Two
Sunday from 9am-5pm
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Hacking finishes at 12pm
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Participants to present their demo and presentations (4 min each)
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Judges to determine winners
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What's next for Hackathon
Prizes
Our panel of judges will be assessing the teams based on the criteria:
Communication
Can the team clearly and concisely communicate the future state they are creating?
Social Impact
Does the solution solve a meaningful problem and create measurable value?
Credibility
Does the team demonstrate grit, self-awareness, and the ability to execute?
Problem Validation
Have real customers provided input? Is there evidence that the problem is worth solving?
User Experience
Is the workflow intuitive? Can a new user understand it quickly?
Technicality
Does the prototype actually work and leverage Oracle Cloud Infrastructure capabilities?
WHAT YOU WILL SHOW THE JUDGES
A PITCH
A 2 minute presentation explaining the customer pain point, why you came up with your solution, and how you will be approaching potential customers
A PROTOTYPE
A 2 minute presentation demonstration of at least one feature of your proposed working solution. It can be a feature for an existing business, or something completely new!
YOU WILL HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO BE REWARDED WITH
1:1 Mentoring
with recognized leaders in tech to help your career journey
$2000 USD
Monetary Prize Pool
Awarded to winning teams
1st - $1000
2nd - $750
3rd - $250
Access to like minded individuals and tech communities groups
Judges
Industry experts who will be evaluating the video presentations. They will be asking questions after the presentations to the teams to help determine the winners.
Sr Director, Talent Acuisition and Exec Recruiting
Dustin Eden
VP, External Standards & Community Engagement
Heather VanCura
Abhishek Dubey
Associate Dean, Research Scientist, Professor
Miss Grand Tennessee 2026
Amanda Bell
Sr Director of Software Engineering
Matt Strong
Director of Application Services
Eric Herman
Internal Medicine Physician, Future Way Forward Founder
Dr Gerald Onuoha
Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the College of Connected Computing
Julie Johnson
SVP OCI Networking
Murari Sridharan
Director Talent Acquisition, OCI
Refawne Acarregui
Software Engineer
Don Granstaff
Mentors and Helpers
Principal Program Manager, Community Engagement
Steph Stanton
Technical Program Manager, Oracle Cloud Infrastracture
Kailas Jawadekar
Senior Manager, Talent Acquisition
Tyler Muller
Communications Program Manager
Lilly Berry
Co-President, VandyHacks
Shravya Eyunni
Software Engineer
Shivram Gupta
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Sr Product Manager, OCI
Jaya Kilkovalavedu
Team Member, VandyHacks
Jacob Kaiser
Co-President, VandyHacks
Filiz Karabulut
Sr Manager, Core Infrastructure Engineering
Sam Fleming
Director, Software Engineering
Bryant Mayne
Senior Platform Software Engineer
Anjana Cox
Team Member, VandyHacks
Ji Yoo Park
Information Systems and Analytics Instructor
Erica Williamson
Sr Principal AI Applied Scientist
Hadi Hosseini
Senior Member Of Technical Staff
Nikhil Mandge
Senior Platform Software Engineer
Cameron Gould
Team Member, VandyHacks
Jessica Wang
Software Engineer
Abhishek Singh
Software Engineer
Hari Thallam
Program Manager, Global Intern Programs
Amy Willits
Team Member, VandyHacks
Maya Poghosyan
The Hackathons International Team
The benefits of going to a Hackathon is that you can learn new skills about entrepreneurship, design thinking, and technologies that you can bring back into your day-to-day life. The Hackathons International will be with on site to help you throughout the Hackathon.
CEO & Co-Founder, Lead Facilitator
Angela Bee Chan
Software Developer and Tech Support
Alicia Brandewie
Faith James
Experience Lead and Event Support
Watch to learn more
Thank you to our Community Partners for providing their platforms to help spread the word about #HackTN.
If you want to learn more about this Hackathon, watch and read the below!
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