Our third annual Opportunity Hack will open at 8:00 a.m. on October 3rd. At Opportunity Hack you can network, share ideas and build solutions that enable impact and social innovation! Come with an idea or join a team that will hack solutions for any of the problem statements listed by our partnering non-profits!
Check in will be from 8:00 until 9:00 and breakfast will be served. Please note that ONLY THE FIRST 200 will be allowed to enter the door.
At 9:00 we'll have our opening keynote speaker. We are excited to announce that Hillary Hartley is going to kick us off. Hillary is Deputy Executive Director @ 18F. Hillary Hartley is co-founder and lead creative at 18F, a digital services agency inside the General Services Administration. She came to the GSA as a Presidential Innovation Fellow in 2013, where she worked on the development of MyUSA.gov. Hillary has been working to make government more accessible and available online for nearly two decades, starting as a web designer for Arkansas.gov in 1997. As Director of Integrated Marketing for eGovernment provider NIC, Hillary helped NIC's 30 state government partners embrace new technology and concepts for a 21st century government. She speaks at events across the country, educating and evangelizing “government 2.0” and customer service/community engagement best practices for government. Twitter: @hillary
Then the fun begins! Our non-profits will all have an opportunity to pitch their ideas to all the participants. We'll be moving this along quickly so that we can move into team building. You can bring a whole team, but if you don't we're pretty good at facilitating team formation. This is the part of the program that people tend to be the most nervous about, but it all works out. We've done it successfully a bunch of times and we'll make sure you get hooked up.
Please note that the pitch session scheduled to take place at 9:30 am is for only non-profits pitching ideas.. If you have an idea that you have would like to hack at the event for please see the rules around participant submitted ideas posted here.
11:00 a.m. It's time to get your Hack On! You have from now until 3:00 p.m. on Sunday! We're providing meals and snacks and support around the clock.
3:00 p.m. on Sunday it's time to let the keyboard rest. You'll want to have your prototype and presentation ready for a three minute presentation to the judges with some Q&A. There will be a brief intermission for scoring and then the top teams will be chosen and accolades will flow! This will mark the end of the event and the beginning of the celebration, where we will also provide appropriate supplies.
Detailed Agenda
Saturday (10/03)
- 08:00AM: Doors open for check-in
- 09:00AM: Opening ceremony & Keynote by Hillary Hartley
- 09:30AM: Project pitches
- 10:30AM: Team formation
- 11:00AM: The Hackathon begins!
- Noon: Lunch is served
- 02:00PM: Submit team details
- 06:00PM: Dinner is served
- 09.00PM: Ice cream & Giant Jenga games
HACK THROUGH THE NIGHT
Sunday (10/04)
- Midnight: Pizza served
- 08:00AM:Breakfast is served & Subject matter experts available (3 hours)
- Noon: Lunch is served / I can’t think straight but this tastes awesome!
- 02:00PM: Code checked into GitHub
- 02:45PM: Presentations submitted on DevPost
- 03:00PM: Hackathon ends
- 03:15PM: Judging
- 04:30PM: Closing
- 05:00PM: Winners are announced / Prizathon!
- 05:30PM: Drinkathon / You’ve survived… let’s celebrate!
Find out more about Opportunity Hack 2014 here and some of the success stories here
Eligibility
See official rules.
Requirements
- All members of team have registered on DevPost and are added to the project submission.
- Links to GitHub, and video or presentation must be included in project submission.
- At least two members of team will be present in person for demo to judges.
Prizes
$7,000 in prizes
1st Place
This is a hackathon funded by raising funds and to support our non profits. But we understand prizes are still exciting. The biggest win is really the impact you will have on making the world a better place. Students from winning team will also have a guaranteed internship interview.
Other Prizes:
* For students in winning team, we guarantee an interview with College Recruiting teams at PayPal
* Leadership Training in Nov for upto 5 members of winning team.
2nd Place
For students in winning team, we guarantee an interview with College Recruiting teams at PayPal in addition to the cash prize.
3rd Place
San Jose Tech Museum family annual memberships
Devpost Achievements
Submitting to this hackathon could earn you:
How to enter
- Join Opportunity Hack San Jose on DevPost
- Come to the event with a team or we will help you build a team of like minded folks.
Judges

Edwin Aoki
PayPal Chief Arcitect

Marlon Evans
CEO @ GSVLabs

Laura Hattendorf
Portfolio Director, Mulago Foundation

Jorge Calderon
Lecturer, University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business

Mohak Shroff
Vice President of Engineering, Consumer Products at LinkedIn
Judging Criteria
-
Scope
How big an impact will your solution have on the community? Key things that are important are * Scale of the problem being solved * Potential reach * Productivity gains - 10 points -
Presentation/Demo
In order to be successful you need to be able to demonstrate and market your solution so that it can succeed long term– 10 points -
Innovation
Displaying innovative solutions to the problems. Do you solve the problem in a novel way? Can you create a solution that is cohesive across different areas or technologies? - 10 points -
Accessible by the Target User Base
It’s crucial that the target user base actually has access to the technology in question. Can you articulate the capabilities and limitations of your userbase? Does your product fit within those capabilities or work around them? - 10 points -
Implementable
The projects need to be able to move from "proof-of-concept" to working project. Is your architecture and technology extendable by others? Can the project be tuned to meet different or changing needs?– 10 points -
Open Source Software
Open source solutions allow for a wider variety of contributors to be able to improve, extend and build upon. Does your project leverage open source software or libraries? Is your project in github? – 10 points -
Cover all categories
All teams must get atleast 1 point in all the above categories. Getting a 0 in any one category will mean they are not eligible to win
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