Presenting Hack the 6ix Digital

Hack the 6ix is monitoring the situation with the current COVID-19 pandemic and our organizing team is committed to evolving the event into a digital hackathon. We want to follow up from a very successful 2020 event to provide valuable experiences and challenges to hackers as well as an opportunity for sponsors to get involved with students in a different format. Hack the 6ix will utilize all available resources to make sure that the event can run smoothly while everyone is socially distancing in their own homes.

Vision

As a hackathon organized by students from universities across Canada, we hope to bring together the nation’s talent by providing an interactive environment where attendees can be free to innovate and create under the guidance of our industry mentors. We aim to continue to successfully expand our organization to provide more learning opportunities for students as well as more corporate exposure for companies.

Commitment to Diversity

Hack the 6ix is committed to being an advocate for diversity by creating an inclusive and equitable environment for innovation. In 2020 we took good strides towards empowering more participation of women in technology through keynote speakers, panels with company representatives, workshops, and networking sessions. We want to continue with the same energy and hope to inspire more young women and underrepresented groups to explore careers in the technology sector and help them achieve their full potential.

Requirements

Entries are considered if and only if submitted via Devpost before the announced closing time.

Along with your submission on Devpost, you need to submit a video that demos your hack. Submissons without a video will be disqualified. The guidelines for the video are as follows:

Preliminary Judging:
Guidelines for Hack Submissions

Max 3 minutes in length
- Must be in English
- Tell us what your hack does
- Demo your hack
- THIS LIMIT WILL BE STRICTLY ENFORCED
Guiding Questions
- What made you want to build this hack?
- What was the most challenging part of the hack?
- What is your tech stack?
- Refer to Judging Criteria to optimize what should and should not be in the video
Where to submit?
- Devpost - Video Link
  - Make sure your video URL is from a platform that Devpost supports (YouTube, Vimeo, or Youku). If your video is not hosted on one of these platforms, you'll receive a red error message that says, "Must be a valid YouTube, Vimeo, or Youku url."
  - REMEMBER TO MAKE THE VIDEO PUBLIC
- Link to the GitHub repo with the source code
Select any prize categories you want to be considered for
Ensure that you are submitting to the Hack the 6ix 2021 Event
- Verify that Hack the 6ix 2021 appears on your project page after you submit! If it is not, YOUR SUBMISSION WILL NOT BE JUDGED!
Do NOT cross submit your project
- Doing so will result in immediate disqualification
Comply with all event rules in addition to the MLH Code of Conduct

Note: Don’t spend too much time editing the videos. Production quality of your videos won’t affect the judging (unless we absolutely can’t see or hear your video).

Video-making best practices from Devpost

If your team is willing, we'd love to see a team picture - which you can submit through file upload!

Finalist Judging
The top 8 teams from the Preliminary Judging round will present a live demo of their hack infront of a panel of judges. There the top three teams will receive prizes!

Hackathon Sponsors

Prizes

$CAD17,500 in prizes

Hack the 6ix: First Place

Please refer to the judging criteria on our home page!

Prize: Choice of Sony PS5 Digital Edition or Apple iPad Mini!

Hack the 6ix: Second Place

Please refer to the judging criteria on our home page!

Prize: Choice of Nintendo Switch or Apple Watch SE

Hack the 6ix: Third Place

Please refer to the judging criteria on our home page!

Prize: Choice of Nintendo Switch Lite or Apple Airpods

Accenture: Most Innovative Use of Tech for All Design and build a solution that aims to reduce the tech gap in society

The solution should promote inclusion and accessibility in technology, or reduce barriers to technology or technological bias. Solution showcases innovation, creativity, and is fundamentally unique from existing approaches Solution is clear and concise from proof of concept to final product Solution shows potential for social value and monetization by identifying key stakeholders, assessing the magnitude of impact and clearly presenting the business case
*Bonus points if cloud technologies are incorporated into the solution

Prize: 4 Apple Watches (1 per team member)

BMO: “Dinners made easy” Challenge

As we all transition back towards a hybrid world of in-person events and online, we are facing the every day challenge of what’s for dinner.
Many of us are becoming chefs at home and others are finding the need for innovated apps or technology to help solve for what to eat,
BMO’s challenge is for you to find an innovative and creative way to help solve for “what to eat for dinner”

Prize: A Fireside chat with one of BMO Leaders

Intact: Intact Insurance Innovation Challenge

Insurance is often seen as a very traditional industry – but it doesn’t need to be that way! Build an innovative project to showcase how auto and home insurance can be modernized through the use of data science, machine learning, analytics or any other technology.

Project must be demonstrated to be applicable to auto and/or home insurance. Use of data science and/or machine learning preferred.

Prize: $1000 cash prize for the winning team

Geotab: Geotab Challenge

Use Geotab's telematics data sets in the most innovative way possible. Available datasets are in covid mobility impact (traffic analysis, congestion, fuel fillup analytics, etc.), weather information, urban infrastructure analytics (dangerous intersections, cell coverage areas, etc.), and vehicle location analytics (parking locations, fuel station metrics, idling times, etc.)

Judging will take into consideration Geotab’s core principles: Productivity, Optimization, Safety, Compliance and Expandability, Sustainability

Prize: Interview with Geotab and $100 Gift Card

Cockroach DB: Cockroach DB Challenge

Use CockroachDB in your hackathon app for a chance to win the Best Use of CockroachDB prize and an opportunity to be featured on our Twitch channel.

Prize: Amazon gift card worth $100 for each team member up to 4 members

Scotiabank: Best FinTech hack for young women

This challenge is for all and the goal is to create
the best FinTech tool targeted to women.

Prize: Airpods Pro for each team member

echoAR: echoAR Challenge

Build the best AR/VR application using the echoAR platform! For FREE access to all Business Plan features, register to the platform here:
https://console.echoar.xyz/#/auth/register-promo?code=Hackthe6ix2021
Participants MUST use the echoAR platform as part of their project to be eligible for a reward.

PRIZES: By creating a project with echoAR you will enter to win:

1. A $50 Amazon.com gift card (per team);
2. 3-month free Business Tier access (per team member); and
3. Selected projects will be featured on our “Inspiration” page

Hack the 6ix: Best Design

The Hack the 6ix Design team will decide on the best designed submission, focusing on aesthetics, user experience and intuitiveness.

Prize: $200 gift card for the winning team!

Hack the 6ix: Best Accessibility Hack

Digital accessibility is the practice of building and designing websites, apps, and other tools so that people with disabilities can use them. Whether it's the concept or design, the Hack the 6ix team will decide on the project that accommodates for the best digital accessibility.

Prize: $200 gift card for the winning team

Hack the 6ix: Best Beginner Hack

Is this your team's first or second hackathon? Congrats on making it this far! We've reserved a special prize challenge for you! To qualify for this challenge, every team member must have attended less than 3 hackathons.

Prize: $200 gift card for the winning team!

Mentor's Choice - Best Technical Portfolio

Is your team using some super interesting or innovative technology in your hack? This prize is for you! Design/aesthetics is not a factor that is considered for this prize!

Prize: $200 gift card for the winning team!

Mentor's Choice - Best Business Proposal

Does your project have potential to become a new startup? This prize is for you!

Prize: $200 gift card for the winning team!

MLH: Best Domain Registered with Domain.com

Prize: Each winning team member will receive a PowerSquare Qi wireless phone charger.

MLH: Best Use of Jina

Jina is an open-source search framework that makes building AI-powered search applications even easier for hackers. Create search functionality that matches all kinds of data, including text, images, video & more!

Prize: Hack with Jina for a chance to win Arduino Tiny Machine Learning Kits for you and your team!

MLH: Best Use of Google Cloud

Build your hackathon project with a suite of secure storage, powerful compute, and integrated data analytics products provided by Google Cloud. See full list of products here: g.co/cloud.

Prize: Each winning team member located in the US will receive a Google Cloud Swag Bag complete with a beanie, pillow, journal, socks and lanyards. International winners will receive a Google branded backpack.

MLH: Most Creative Use of Twilio

Twilio allows you to incorporate mobile messaging, phone calls and a ton of other awesome communication features right into your hackathon project using web service APIs. Are you building an e-commerce website and want to send text notifications or email confirmations once an order is completed? Or maybe your application needs to verify users based on their mobile numbers? Twilio makes all this possible and more. Build a hack that simplifies your life using any one of Twilio’s APIs for a chance to win a Twilio Swag Box and GameGo Console for you and each of your teammates!

MLH: Best Use of CockroachDB

Build your hackathon project on CockroachDB's open source and indestructible SQL database. Utilize CockroachDB in your hack for a chance to win a 3D printing pen for each team member. What's more, ALL projects submitted that use CockroachDB will receive a free t-shirt!

Judges

TBD

Judging Criteria

TECHNICAL COMPLEXITY (25% Weighting)
How challenging was it to develop the project? Were there significant technical hurdles that required unique solutions? (e.g. how much does it rely on APIs? How much of the heavy lifting are external libraries/API doing?)
DESIGN (25% Weighting)
User experience, intuitiveness, ease of use, and generally how good the submitted project looks. (e.g. sophistication of design)
BUSINESS PRACTICALITY (25% Weighting)
The project’s real business applications (e.g. can the proof-of-concept be expanded to create a real, marketable product to consumers).
INNOVATION (25% Weighting)
How creative and original the submitted project is. (e.g. new uses of existing tech)