Students (and teachers) can now register for High School Hacks II which is a free event that is again being held at Pay Pal headquarters in San Jose, California.

Last year more than 700 students from over 50 high schools participated in the 24-hour hackathon and another 300 high school students participated remotely. The event, named “HSHacks,” was conceived, organized and funded by high school students through sponsorships and through the generosity of eBay who provides the event venue free of cost at its San Jose headquarters.  Here is an excellent review of last year’s event: http://venturebeat.com/2014/03/10/teenagers-take-over-paypal-hold-their-own-hackathon/.

Last year, students self-organized into working teams to develop ideas that would bring value to technology users or solve problems. For 24 hours the teams – fueled by sodas, burgers, pizza and snack foods – worked through the night to build apps and games to win prizes provided by the many event sponsors.  Top industry developers and designers were also on-hand.

The goal of the event was to help students take control of their education. A social and competitive atmosphere of events like HSHacks inspires students who have never had the power to build their ideas.  HSHacks leadership said: “We want to introduce as many people to computer science as possible with our hackathon to increase talent in the industry.”

Teachers Wanted

Teachers are welcome to this event to inspire, advise and mentor students as they built their technology projects.  You can simply observe or if you know any programming language you will understand the logic behind computer science and be able to assist. A teacher who knows Java, for example, would still be able to teach the fundamentals of a language such as Python. Teachers with experience in web and app development are preferred (Java, objective C, Python, JavaScript).

Teachers with limited technical skill can be helpful at the event when they:

• Challenge students to understand a difficult concept.
• Explain how what they are learning can be applied to college or career.
• Helping students work in a group to achieve a shared goal.
• Encourage students to believe they can learn difficult content.
• Coach students on how to make an effective presentation to the judge or group.

Theresa Gao, President of HSHacks and leader of this event remarked: “… we would be lucky with any teachers we can get! Honestly, I think most importantly, just being able to encourage students when they feel frustrated or stuck will be the biggest thing in terms of helping the students (which teachers tend to be awesome at!)

For more information about this event visit the HS Hacks website or contact Theresa Gao, President of HSHacks at theresa@hshacks.com  It’s exciting to see female leadership for this event!  You or your students can follow Theresa on Twitter Theresa at: @theresagao