It’s almost time to kick-off Global Entrepreneurship Week 2018, and what better way to do so, with a good old-fashioned HACKATHON, November 10-11 at Bird Library.
One of the central themes of this year’s Global Entrepreneurship Week theme is inclusion, and the 1st annual Campus Safety Challenge aligns perfectly with the theme. Innovators, designers, hackers, entrepreneurs and creative thinkers from any field across campus are invited to participate.
The Campus Safety Challenge is a 24-hour hackathon-style competition that focuses on three main initiatives that students in the SU community feel pose the biggest threat to our campus safety. These three initiatives are bias/racism, sexual assault/rape, and mental wellness. All teams will be challenged to create a technical and scalable solution to combat one of these three initiative,s and innovate new ways to approach such traditional societal problems.
The event will be held on the first floor of Bird Library, with the opening and closing ceremonies taking place in Peter Graham Scholarly Commons and all work being done in and around the Blackstone LaunchPad. The competition spans over 24 hours from November 10-11, starting at 1 p.m. to 10 p.m. until Bird Library closes for the night (with Kimmel Dining Hall across the street open until 3 a.m. for teams that want to keep working over caffeine and late night snacks), then returning back from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. for finishing touches/final results. Judges will include campus and community experts in public safety, inclusion and diversity.
There will be “Professional Thinkers” on hand to assist teams through the ideation phase of their solutions. These “Thinkers” will consist of SU entrepreneurs and innovators who have volunteered their time to help students create the best solutions possible.
The Campus Safety Challenge is hosted by the Campus Solutions Committee, a new Student Association committee focused on creating technical solutions to problems on campus, along with Innovate Orange, an up-and-coming student organization that hosted ‘Cuse Hacks, the first ever student-run hackathon on campus, last spring.
The Campus Solutions Committee is run by SA’s Director of Technology, and long-time Global Media Fellow for the Blackstone LaunchPad, David Fox.
If interested in the event, build a team of four and register using the link at the bottom of this article. There is only space for 30 teams to sign up, though if there is an excessive amount of demand for more teams that may be subject to change. With $2,000 worth of prizes available to the winners, it’s a good idea to sign up today. All participants must be SU students.
For more information, please contact David Fox at djfox100@syr.edu.
Good luck and get hacking!