For those of you all who haven't heard of Hack the North, I'd say that it is one of the biggest and most well organised Hackathons where around 1000 people from all over the world come together for a 36 hrs hackathon at University of Waterloo, Toronto, Ontario. It is one of the most exciting Major League Hackathons(MLH). This year it happened on 15th, 16th and 17th of September.
During my summer vacations, after doing two wonderful hackathons and getting a little obsessed over hackathons I started thinking about something exciting in it like how about I try for some International hackathon!? That was when I came across Hack the North, and why not apply for it? After all it provides travel reimbursements too :)
So I went ahead and registered for it where I had to upload my resume and write a small essay of maybe 500 words describing about the project I'm proud of and how did I overcome all the difficulties during the project. To my surprise, in the morning of 6th August I woke up with a mail in my inbox saying I got selected! :D
Next up, was go and apply for Canadian Visa. TBH the visa procedure was more challenging than the Hackathon. Till the very end I wasn't sure if I would be able to attend the Hackathon because the visa processing took hell lot of time, it being the peak season. You won't believe that I finally got my visa on 14th September afternoon and I boarded my flight in the night of 14th, that touch and go situation it was! Damn! I was so jet lagged during the Hackathon because from the Toronto Pearson Airport I directly headed towards the University for starting the hackathon that very midnight.
You know what, the PM of Canada, Justin Trudeau was present at the opening ceremony!! His welcoming remarks were the highlight. There were really nice workshops and tech talks happening during the weekend but unfortunately I wasn't free enough to attend them except for the Diversity and Inclusion Panel discussion. Tracy Chou and Cat Noone were my favorite of all the panelists.
This was the beautiful engineering building were we spent the 36 hrs.
Link to all the amazing projects that were build during the hackathon: https://goo.gl/JuyqHg
Link to my team's project: https://goo.gl/sie7W1
Want to see the crowd that gathered near the sponsors to collect the swag :P
I would definitely say that whoever gets an opportunity to participate in the Hack the North, just go for it because it is the best place to network and get to know people from different part of the world. This was actually a really nice learning experience for me right from dealing with visa procedures to traveling alone and changing terminals at the layovers to finally doing a hackathon while being totally jet lagged.
This also gave me an opportunity to visit my relatives living in Toronto and spending time with them visiting places in and around Toronto like the stunning Niagara Falls and the CN Tower.
During my summer vacations, after doing two wonderful hackathons and getting a little obsessed over hackathons I started thinking about something exciting in it like how about I try for some International hackathon!? That was when I came across Hack the North, and why not apply for it? After all it provides travel reimbursements too :)
So I went ahead and registered for it where I had to upload my resume and write a small essay of maybe 500 words describing about the project I'm proud of and how did I overcome all the difficulties during the project. To my surprise, in the morning of 6th August I woke up with a mail in my inbox saying I got selected! :D
Next up, was go and apply for Canadian Visa. TBH the visa procedure was more challenging than the Hackathon. Till the very end I wasn't sure if I would be able to attend the Hackathon because the visa processing took hell lot of time, it being the peak season. You won't believe that I finally got my visa on 14th September afternoon and I boarded my flight in the night of 14th, that touch and go situation it was! Damn! I was so jet lagged during the Hackathon because from the Toronto Pearson Airport I directly headed towards the University for starting the hackathon that very midnight.
You know what, the PM of Canada, Justin Trudeau was present at the opening ceremony!! His welcoming remarks were the highlight. There were really nice workshops and tech talks happening during the weekend but unfortunately I wasn't free enough to attend them except for the Diversity and Inclusion Panel discussion. Tracy Chou and Cat Noone were my favorite of all the panelists.
This was the beautiful engineering building were we spent the 36 hrs.
Link to all the amazing projects that were build during the hackathon: https://goo.gl/JuyqHg
Link to my team's project: https://goo.gl/sie7W1
Want to see the crowd that gathered near the sponsors to collect the swag :P
I would definitely say that whoever gets an opportunity to participate in the Hack the North, just go for it because it is the best place to network and get to know people from different part of the world. This was actually a really nice learning experience for me right from dealing with visa procedures to traveling alone and changing terminals at the layovers to finally doing a hackathon while being totally jet lagged.
This also gave me an opportunity to visit my relatives living in Toronto and spending time with them visiting places in and around Toronto like the stunning Niagara Falls and the CN Tower.
