350 Students From Across Canada To Attend Trent University’s 2nd Annual Hackathon

Electric City Hacks is back and bigger than ever. More than 350 post-secondary students from across the country, including students from local area high schools, are expected to attend Peterborough’s only hackathon, which will return to Trent University on November 3rd to 5th.
 
Founded in 2016 by four Trent University Computer Science and Information Systems students, Electric City Hacks or “ECHacks” offers post-secondary students the opportunity to put their coding knowledge to the test by creating an original hack, gadget or app from scratch in less than 37 hours.

Photo courtesy Innovation Cluster

This year’s hackathon will consist of multiple categories such as “Best Green Hack”, “Agriculture Hack”, “Adventure Hack” and more, to encourage participants to create with a specific purpose in mind. Prizes will be awarded to the top team in each category Sunday afternoon.

In between hacking, participants can also look forward to a morning hike around the Trent nature areas, campus tours and yoga classes, as well as a taste of Peterborough’s downtown with meals provided all weekend by local vendors and restaurants.

Photo courtesy Innovation Cluster

The Innovation Cluster is a sponsor this year:

“We are extremely excited to support the second annual Electric City Hacks at Trent University,” says Michael Skinner, President & CEO of the Innovation Cluster. “This hackathon will be a great opportunity for students to expose talent, grow, recruit and bring new innovative companies to Peterborough.”

Photo courtesy Innovation Cluster

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First Ever Hackathon Taking Place At Trent University

Trent University is proud to host its first hackathon in Peterborough. Electric City Hacks (ECHacks) will include about 350 student tech leaders from across Canada and beyond who will design, build, demo and make their dreams a reality.

RIM and the Greater Peterborough Innovation Cluster are major sponsors for the Hackathon, which takes place November 4th to 6th. Electric City Hacks—comprised of a group of computer science students at Trent—partnered with Major League Hacking to do this 36 hour event taking place November 4th to 6th at Gzowski College on Trent’s Symons campus. This Hackathon will challenge student innovators to design, build and demonstrate their developments.

Electric City hack members (computer science students at Trent): Yashar Morabbi Heravi, Waun Broderick, Laura Mann, Matthew Barnes & Dexter Fichuk

ECHacks has invited all post secondary and high school students interested in the development, innovation and progression of technology to apply for this collaborative event, which will demonstrate the best of computer and engineering tech skills.

Creating an environment for students to learn, create and excel, Electric City Hacks will also be a fantastic chance to vie for future employment as many of their sponsors will be sending representative scouts to find student talent in the tech industry. Other sponsors include TD Financial, Fresh Books Cloud Accounting and TribalScale.
 
“We are extremely excited to support the first ever Electric City Hacks at Trent University," says Michael Skinner, President & CEO of the Innovation Cluster. "Hackathons are a fantastic way to expose talent, grow, recruit and bring new innovative companies to Peterborough.”

Over a dozen workshops will be taking place over the course of the weekend, targeting both university students as well as high school students to highlight the possibility of tech. Coding, robotics and a hackathon bootcamp for high school students are just a few examples of the amazing workshops that will be held throughout the 36 hour event.
 
“We decided to hold Electric City Hacks because we saw how many opportunities it brought to the schools that hosted them, and how it completely revolutionized tech industries in each community,” says Dexter Fichuk of ECHacks.
 
The entire event—breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as snacks—will be provided to participants free of charge. The Innovation Cluster will also be hosting the "Chill Zone" with beanbag chairs for the hackers to think creatively and relax.
 
For more info and to apply, click here.

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