AngelHack 2019: Seattle

Global Hackathon Series 2019 

The Global Hackathon Series was initially started by a small community of technologists with one goal in mind: to develop opportunity wherever possible.

What started as a way for creators to connect and move their ideas forward turned into a global revolution. Soon, innovators from around the world were joining forces to elevate themselves and their platform – all of which was done through Hackathons. 

And while we’ve seen lots of changes since the early Hackathon days, one thing has remained the same – innovators are continuing to rise. Innovators rise to meet opportunity, they rise from failure, they rise from all corners of the globe, and they lend a hand to help others rise with them. It’s why the Global Hackathon Series is still going strong to this day, because Hackathons and the opportunities they create allow people to rise, together. 

We offer our own Grand Prize AND team up with awesome sponsors who have their own challenges and prizes you can go after. Aiming for the HACKcelerator invite? Only in it for some cool hardware? Good news, you can go for as many challenges as you want!

AngelHack Challenge: Challenge yourself and your entrepreneurial spirit. Make something innovative without limits, something that brings positive change to the world, even something that solves a small problem. It’s that simple.

AngelHack Prize: The winning team from each hackathon will receive $500 and an invite into AngelHack’s HACKcelerator program.

Challenge: 

We are looking for the best use of our AWS AI / ML services in your project:

• Amazon Comprehend: Discover insights and relationships in text.


• Amazon Lex: Build voice and text chatbots.


• Amazon Personalize: Build real-time recommendations into your applications.


• Amazon Polly: Turn text into lifelike speech.


• Amazon Rekognition: Analyze image and video.


• Amazon Textract: Extract text and data from documents.


• Amazon Translate: Translate texts with higher accuracy.


• Amazon Transcribe: Automatic speech recognition.

Use any of the above AWS AI/ML service to qualify for the AWS challenge. Check out the AWS Machine Learning Demo Portal for demos and workshops and our AWS Hackathon Guide for a list of resources to get started with AWS.

For additional inspiration, look through publicly available datasets at Registry of Open Data on AWS, such as Amazon Customer Reviews, Web Crawl Data of over 25 billion web pages, and the Multimedia Commons collection of images and videos.

Prize: 

• The team with the best use of our AWS AI/ML services will win one (1) AWS DeepLens camera per team member + $1,000 in AWS Promotional Credits for the team


• The runner up team will win one (1) Fire TV Cube per team member


• The 2nd runner up team will win one (1) Adabox per team member

All attendees will also receive $100 in AWS credits during the Hackathon

Challenge: Get started for the 2019 Call for Code Global Challenge by building an application using cloud, data, analytics, AI, IoT, blockchain to improve disaster preparedness, response, recovery or building back better focused on the health and well-being of individuals and communities. Join the Call for Code community at  ibm.biz/AH-SEWA  then use this visual recognition drone lab as a starting point to kickstart your solution ibm.biz/ah-2019-dl

Prize: One winning submitted project will receive $1k per team and $500/month IBM cloud credits per team member for 6 months

Additional sponsor challenges and prizes to be announced! 

Agora RTC App Challenge: Build an app or website that uses the Agora (RTC) platform to solve a real-world problem, reinvent the future, or simply be creative! Bonus points awarded for solutions with AI functionality overlaid on the RTC stream. This can range from sentiment analysis to facial detection to…well, just about anything. Show us your best results!

Prize: $1,500 USD

Who Can Participate

One principle that has guided this community since its first Hackathon is that everyone is welcome. Great ideas stem from discussion, and we believe the best discussions start by talking to someone whose background or experiences might differ from your own. With this in mind, we invite all startups, developers, entrepreneurs, and designers who are passionate about creating to join regardless of experience level, geographic location, or similar factors. And if you’re under 18 we ask that you bring along a parent or guardian when you check-in so they can sign a participation waiver.

Day 1 

9:00 AM : Doors Open & Breakfast
10:00 AM : Opening Ceremony, Sponsor Welcomes, & Team Building
11:00 AM : Coding Kick Off
1:00 PM : Lunch
2:00 PM : Sponsor Breakout Sessions 
7:00 PM : Dinner
8:00 PM : Pitch Workshop 
*Venue open overnight 

Day 2

8:00 AM : Breakfast
12:00 PM : Lunch
1:00 PM : Code Freeze & Submission Deadline
1:30 PM : A/V Check
2:00 PM : Demos 
4:00 PM : Winners are Announced / Prizes!

Each submission will be scored in each round based on the following criteria with a minimum score of 0 and a maximum score of 25 points, with the final score being the average of the judges’ scores:

• 
  

  Fundability: How fundable is this idea? Is there potential for a sustainable business model? Is this scalable? (0-5 points)

  
  


• 
  

  Execution: How well was the project executed and explained? Did they add a demo video? (0-5 points)

  
  


• 
  

  UI/UX: Beyond design, was the end-to-end user experience for the solution considered? (0-5 points)

  
  


• 
  

  Originality: How original, creative or unique is the idea? Is there a competitive advantage? (0-5 points)

  
  


• 
  

  Team: Is there a diverse team presented? Do they have a range of complementary skill sets for the project? (0-5 points)

  
  

We know some rules are meant to be broken, but you should probably (read: definitely) stick by these:

1. Fresh Code – We all start coding at the same time. It’s cool to work on designs beforehand, digital mockups, open source frameworks, and anything else available to everyone, but keep things within fair limits.


2. Code Review – Winning teams may be subject to a code-review at some point following the event or immediately before winning. This is to ensure that all code used is in fact fresh.


3. Ownership and IP – You own your IP and whatever you create. Simple as that.


4. Team Size – No more than five people.


5. Submissions – Each hackathon has its individual hackathon.iopage where projects need to be submitted by the designated time. You’ll receive an email with instructions on how to do just that.


6. Demos – You’ll have 2 minutes to demo the functionality of your project and talk through your idea, and 1 minute for Q&A from judges.


7. Be courteous and cool to your fellow hackers! Check out our Code of Conduct.

Want your organization to be involved in a global technology and innovation movement seeking to spread opportunity across the world? A limited set of sponsorships are still available. For more information, please reach out to [email protected].

To see the full rules and eligibility criteria, please check out the Participation Agreement.