This September, our own student-organized BJ MedHacks led by Julia Nguyen is hosting a school-wide hackathon. It’s open to all high school students in the Madison/Huntsville area with students coming from Bob Jones, James Clemens, New Century Technology School, and ASCTE. For those of you who are unaware, a hackathon is composed of different teams of 4 set on creating a project to present to a panel of judges in order to get prizes ranging from $150 per person for 1st place, $100 per person for 2nd place, and $50 for 3rd place.

The past weekend the Learn-a-thon was held at the Patriot Hall located in the upstairs commons of Bob Jones. On Saturday, we saw workshops such as Python 101, Intro to Flask, and Intro to AI/Machine Learning, presented by Rojae Johnson and Noah Baijo, J.Langley, and Jonathan Rosswog respectively. Other workshops were presented on Sunday such as Ideation and Innovation presented by Alice Lessmann and Gary Marineau, and How to Create a Winning Presentation by Liv Weaver. With these workshops, students will be able to have an idea of what medical problem they want to tackle and solve in the Hackathon. 

This hackathon in particular was made to “build and empower young entrepreneurs” as well as “hopefully inspire students to find their passion.” You don’t need a background in computer science in order to participate in this hackathon. The hackathon is there to bring an educational environment while also challenging students to apply what they learned in the workshops to action. 

Julia Nguyen, the lead organizer of this event, did 2 hackathons earlier this year virtually. With the hackathons being virtual, it allowed her to work with people not just from all over the country but also the world. She learned a lot from the time spent in these workshops that she attended as well as from her teammates. Her biggest desire was to bring her experiences from those hackathons here to Bob Jones and that “we, high schoolers, acknowledge the constantly changing medical world and take charge.” 

The board consists of Julia Nguyen as lead organizer, Xueer Chen and Thomas Nguyen as financial managers, Maanasi Limaye and Samanvi Vootukuri as logistics managers, and Alecia Walker and Staci Smith as marketing managers. This event was sponsored by iRepertoire, Acclinate, SimTech, Booz Allen, and Brockwell Technologies. Without the support of Mrs. Thaxton, Mrs. Lambert, and everybody involved, this event would not have been possible. 

For more information, you can contact [email protected]