Though pulling all-nighters is not uncommon in college, students at this year’s 5C Hackathon took this 24-hour time period to channel their creative energy in a coding marathon.
On April 5 and 6 in Edmunds Ballroom, participants came together to code innovative product ideas and proposed potential scalable apps. The contest, which has been held annually since 2011, was organized by co-directors Sangeon Park HM ’26 and Catherine Byen PO ’25. In addition to ASPC, the Sustainability Office and Claremont Accelerator, several corporate sponsors were attached to the event, including Bloomberg, Perplexity and Notion.
This year’s Hackathon, themed “Code to Connect,” focused on using technology to build community, spark connection and drive change. Participants could compete in two tracks: the Innovation track, where they would propose scalable solutions for real-world problems, or the Maker Track, which entailed coding machine learning models, apps and websites. Students could also submit their projects to overlay categories, such as Best Sustainability, Health and Humanity, 5C Community, and Beginner Hacks.
This year, in addition to the coding marathon, the Hackathon also offered workshops on data visualization and winning investors for start-ups.
Park described the Hackathon as important to encouraging innovation outside the classroom.
“I think a hackathon is a good way for people with no experience to get experience in technical aspects,” Park said. “People need incentives to build things outside of their classroom.”
During Park’s freshman year, the Hackathon was temporarily inactive, and he helped to re-establish it in 2023.
66 students working on 23 projects participated in the Hackathon. 40 percent of the students had little to no technical experience, according to data from the co-directors. The Hackathon aimed to make technology and innovation accessible to every student, particularly those who are underrepresented in the field of technology.
Before the Hackathon began, Alison Wang SC ’27 noted that she was looking forward to the event after participating in the 5C Datathon, a data analysis competition. Her team’s project ended up winning the Best Beginner Hack award.
”We’re excited for the process of creating for the Hackathon, and I think this is a pretty good learning opportunity,” Wang said.
Gabby Clavell, an engineer from Bloomberg and one of the judges, thought the students’ projects were innovative.
“The ideas are really original. One of them even built out a prototype, which was really cool … I appreciate the effort that they put into presenting their projects,” Clavell said.
These projects ranged from a reimagined housing portal to a medical imaging AI assistant.
Emily Gao PO ’26 and Selina Lu HM ’26, for example, designed a mobile app meant to foster intentional emotional connection in long-distance relationships.
The pair faced challenges in designing the aesthetics of the app demo titled “LOOOP!”: “There were some challenges in some of the features that we wanted to visually be presented, and it wasn’t matching our expectations,” Lu said. However, the team ended up winning the Innovation Track award.
“O-live,” an assistive tool for real-time fall detection for older adults, earned Ellie Lian PO ’27, Chau Vu PO ’26, Kartika Santoso PO ’26 and Steven Kim PO ’26 the Maker track award.
These projects ranged from a reimagined housing portal to a medical imaging AI assistant.
Zurayna Fatima Saif PZ ’27 won the Workshop Warrior Prize for her engagement in the workshops.
Other projects approached climate change and sustainability, with “RecycLens” and “EcoHabit: Competitive Sustainability” winning Best Sustainability Hack and Best Beginner Hack, respectively.
“RecycLens,” an AI-powered trash segregation tool with a 5C-based sustainability progress leaderboard, was designed by Ishita Jain HM ’27 and Sadhvi Narayanan HM ’27. “EcoHabit,” a community-focused app that lets users log sustainable actions, earn badges and rank campuses in order to encourage participation, was designed by Anika Pandey HM ’27, Livia Ordonez HM ’27 and Wang.
Students also created projects aiming to foster community and well-being. Mehrezat Abbas CM ’25 won the Best Health and Humanity Hack for “howWefeel,” an emotional tracker meant to encourage emotional awareness, while “Branch,” designed by Alex Nasoni CM ’25, Yotam Twersky PO ’25 and Arjun Govind PO ’25, was the 5C Community winner. The mobile app aims to increase the ease of forming connections by placing users into communities with similar interests.
Opportunities like the 5C Hackathon allow students to apply theoretical knowledge from classes to a fun practical challenge, and in only 24 hours of coding, students created surprising and innovative solutions for real-world issues.
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