Windy Hacks avatarWindy City Hacks
2019 site

Windy City Hacks

June 22-23, 2019, 160 hackers came together for Chicago’s high school hackathon.

Nearly every attendee was attending their first hackathon. They created nearly 50 innovative projects, which were judged by some of the coolest people in Chicago.

Though Chicago is the third-largest city in the US, Windy City Hacks was one of the only high school hackathons in the city all year. We set a new precedent for what making looks like for Chicago youth.

Opening ceremony
Working
More working

Four workshops taught the basics of making attendees’ first websites & games, a web-based synthesizer, and even AI robots!

Attendees hacking at the personal website workshop
Attendees hacking at the personal website workshop
A team working on their project
A team working on their project

Hackers worked through the night to create nearly 50 mindblowing projects (most of them were beginners!)

The next morning, projects were judged by a panel of 9 industry professionals from Chicago.

A team presenting their project to a panel of judges
A team presenting their project to a panel of judges
Our winning team!
Our winning team!

Our winning team made Habit@, a simple web app gamifying sustainability by helping you build & maintain lower-carbon habits.

  • Ice cream at midnight? Yep. 🍦
  • 2am dance party? We did it. 💃
  • Random fruit roll-up giveaways throughout? Yum. 🍭
An assembly line of goodies at the midnight snack
An assembly line of goodies at the midnight snack

Winning projects

Press

Sponsors

8th LightOrigami RiskGitHubActiveCampaignServerCentralMake SchoolAgalmic VenturesHearkenOtusRepl.itRockstar CodersNowPowShowpadSlackHack Club Bank

Additional support from

SketchMeeting TomorrowJellyvisionQuarter ZeroTileYouInkIttastytrade

Judges

  • Abril

    Abril Vela CS4All coordinator @ Chicago Public Schools. Associate board member of We All Code. she/her

  • Nate

    Nate Kontny CTO @ Rockstar Coders, writer, and vlogger. Prev. CEO of Highrise, 2x Y Combinator alum. he/him

  • Mig

    Mig Reyes Director of Product Design @ Sprout Social. Former President of AIGA Chicago. Prev. led design at Trunk Club, Basecamp, & Threadless. he/him

  • Mica

    Mica Alaniz Engineer @ Democratic National Committee, speaker @ Write/Speak/Code, Girlcon, Latinas in Tech & more, mentor & teacher. she/her

  • Kieran

    Kieran Delaney Department Chair: Graphic Design / Interactive Media & VFX / Animation @ Flashpoint Chicago. Mentor & teacher. he/him

  • Sean

    Sean Kim Founder @ Chicago Hacks, Hack Chicago, & Code 211. VP of Kappa Pi Beta @ UIC. Hacker, creator, mentor. he/him

  • Jake

    Jake Albaugh Director of Platform Strategy @ Vinyl Me, Please. Former Engineer @ CodePen. Tinkerer, hacker, & mentor. he/him

  • Tatyana

    Tatyana Shestopalova Entrepreneur, mathematician & web developer. Technical Product Manager @ 4Degrees. Founder @ letsgifton.com. she/her

  • Zach

    Zach Latta Founder of Hack Club. Thiel Fellow & Forbes 30 Under 30. Always building. he/him

Team

  • Matthew

    Matthew Stanciu Founder, lead. he/him

  • Lachlan

    Lachlan Campbell Branding, operations. they/them

  • Ava

    Ava Scherocman Marketing lead. she/her

  • Theo

    Theo Bleier Software, operations. he/him

  • Joy

    Joy Liu Marketing. she/her

  • Michael

    Michael Parekh Marketing, logistics. he/him

  • Amogh

    Amogh Chaubey Logistics. he/him

Special thanks to

  • Adriana

    Adriana Zalloni Venue point of contact @ Origami Risk, logistics queen. she/her

  • Max

    Max Wofford Guest mentor from Hack Club. he/him

  • Chris

    Chris Walker Guest mentor from Hack Club, photographer, workshop teacher. he/him

  • Fernanda

    Fernanda Lozano Helper from Hack Club, wonderful human. she/her

  • Mo

    Moira Hardek GitHub guru. she/her

  • Mingjie

    Mingjie Jiang Tireless mentor. he/him

  • Melody

    Melody Starling Games workshop teacher, mentor. they/them

  • Michael

    Michael Destefanis Hack Club Bank hero, amazing helper. he/him

Thank you so much to our attendees, mentors, and sponsors. We can't wait to do this again next year. 💙