(Secaucus, NJ––May 9, 2021) Students in the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) were recently approved by Major League Hacking to fund High Tech Hacks, part of the 2022 High School Hackathon, announced Ms. Kathy Young, Principal of High Tech High School.
Led by Ms. Sabrina Vargas—SHPE club advisor and teacher of mathematics and physics—High Tech Hacks is a group of student coders and programmers led by members of the HTHS chapter of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, which has supported Hispanic students and professionals in the STEM community for nearly fifty years.
The students in the High Tech Hacks club received the Schmidt Futures Grant to fund the hackathon as well as to bring in professionals from the coding world to teach and certify students through code camps in languages such as Python, CSS, and Java, among others. Speakers include Simon Schwartz, founder of Locasaur; Christien Williams, Associate Product Managers at Schmidt Futures; and Fujia Ren, Software Engineer at Amazon. The High Tech Hacks group was one of only a few schools in the US to be approved by Major League Hacking.
According to Ms. Vargas, credit for the group’s accomplishments belongs entirely to the students. She says, “I am really proud of Matthew Neissen for making this club a reality and spearheading this year's hackathon event along with Benjamin Kaplun-Muller! I am also extremely proud of Mohammed Assoub for helping us get the Schmidt Futures Grant!”
Some of the other students whom Ms. Vargas spotlighted as having been “incredibly helpful” in planning the hackathon include Jaden Bradley, Alondra Rosas, Mohammed Bengabsia, Kurk Gabriel Festin, Taiki Jeffers, Jadryan Pena, and Myles Morales. These students, along with their peers, have been working diligently to make this hackathon a success by building the current website, working with companies, and communicating with engineers around the country.
A hackathon is a fast-paced event where computer programmers and software developers—with skills ranging from interface design to domain experts—collaborate to create a functional program or device. At the High Tech Hacks event, taking place May 21—22, coders from all 50 states and the international hacking community will come together with their ideas and collaboratively test their skills as they attempt to make something new and remarkable.
To learn more about High Tech Hacks, or to sign up as a participant, visit the following links: