Collaborative Competition Offers Prizes, Career Development
TruHacks is a collaborative initiative between Google Developer Student Clubs (GDSC) and Community of College Entrepreneurs (CCE). By bringing together coding enthusiasts and business entrepreneurs from diverse backgrounds, TruHacks provides a platform for participants to collaborate, share ideas and innovate together. This encourages students to think creatively, problem solve and develop innovative solutions to real-world challenges.
“The term hack symbolizes that students are trying to create a project to solve a particular problem, not using their skills for hacking into someone’s computer,” said Rahul Chaudhari, one of the students organizing TruHacks. “This event will showcase how Truman and other university students can work on a problem within just the given time frame.”
This 48-hour-long hackathon is aimed at uniting coding enthusiasts and business entrepreneurs from various universities and high schools in a competition fostering innovation and collaboration. The main theme – the problem set of the event – gets released during the opening ceremony. Once the question is released, the students brainstorm and try to solve the issues at hand.
“Participating in a hackathon like TruHacks offers hands-on, experiential learning opportunities that complement traditional classroom education,” Chaudhari said. “Students gain experience working on real-world projects, solving complex problems and applying theoretical knowledge in a practical setting. The competition also helps with entrepreneurial skills such as project management, team collaboration and presentations. These skills are valuable in various career paths and industries, including technology, business, engineering and more.”
Students have the opportunity to participate individually or as a team with up to four members. The three different categories include: beginners, for high school juniors and seniors; developers; and business. For the beginners and developers categories, participants must submit a website or app designed to address the theme of the event. Those competing in the business category only need to submit a presentation along with their pitch. Winners will be recognized across each category with prizes including gift cards and electronics. Raffle prizes include gift cards from Kirksville businesses.
With the exception of high school students competing in the beginner category, this event will take place in person at Baldwin Hall and McClain Hall. More information, including details on registration, can be found at truhacks.truman.edu. For questions or additional assistance, contact cce@truman.edu or gdsc@truman.edu. Students can also ask question on the website under the tab: Ask Your Question Here.
