SDLC Partners held its second annual Hackathon event on September 21-22, 2019 at their Solution Center in PPG One, downtown Pittsburgh. The event hosted over 80 team participants, including a mix of SDLC and CyLumena employees and undergraduate and graduate students from the University of Pittsburgh, Duquesne University, and Carnegie Mellon University.
Sixteen teams spent 12 hours collaborating on Saturday to come up with an innovative, functional products for healthcare and education that they demonstrated as a working solution to a panel of noteworthy judges on Sunday afternoon.
Bharat Dash, Senior Consultant and Hackathon Lead, summed up the event, “What an amazing second year. It was great to have UiPath provide presentations on robotic process automation and give all the teams access to their software. It was exciting to bring together professionals and university students to create and learn.”
The winning teams included first place to the Ether Bots team from Carnegie Mellon University who received the $2,000 grand prize. Second place, and a $1,000 prize went to Brewing Java from SDLC Partners. Third place was a tie between the f(squad) from Carnegie Mellon University and return to_sleepfrom SDLC Partners. Plus, participants won great raffle prizes, like smart speakers and watches, as well as other fun giveaways.
- Sumit Shrestha, Customer Success Manager, UiPath
- Ben Northrop, Owner, Highline Solutions
- Ryan Green, CEO and Co-founder, Gridwise
- Aaron Watson, CEO, Piper Creative and Executive Producer, Going Deep Summit
- Hannah Phillips, Co-Founder & Chief Creative Officer at Piper Creative
“The best part was to see the teams working on real problems and creating real solutions. Many of the students had to use technology that they’d never seen before, and adding UiPath’s robotic process automation tool as an option really made for a new level of technical excitement,” says Chris Simchick, co-founder and CEO, SDLC Partners.
Scott Barnyak, co-founder and chief sales and marketing officer, highlights the value of team-based hackathons, “It always feels good to see our employees creating an environment for innovation and creativity to blossom. The mentoring, the volunteers, and all the hard work and collaboration amongst the teams makes this a great event for SDLC Partners, but for the next generation of professionals in Pittsburgh.”