It’s the most wonderful time of the year… HackTJ time, of course! EastBanc Technologies is proud to be the Gold sponsor of this year’s Thomas Jefferson High School hackathon. Organized by the bright young minds at Thomas Jefferson High School of Science and Technology in Alexandria, Va., HackTJ is an annual student-run hackathon where the next generation of innovators gather to creatively solve real-world challenges.
This is our third year sponsoring HackTJ, and our participation includes designing three challenges for teams to hack. While we can’t share the full details yet, the challenges will explore how to alleviate some of the world’s most pressing issues impacting our personal and professional lives. Teams working on our challenges will compete to win prizes including a Razer BlackWidow V3 Mechanical Keyboard or a Raspberry Pi 400. Our sponsorship extends beyond the event as well — we have hosted several HackTJ participants as EastBanc Technologies interns over the years and look forward to welcoming more.
We’re also thrilled to announce the EastBanc Technologies judges who will select the winning hacks for our challenges. This year’s volunteer judges are CTO Victor Shilo and machine learning engineer Denys Fedorchuk. Victor and Denys bring more than 20 years of experience building custom software solutions that solve complex business and technology issues for customers such as the American Red Cross, NASDAQ and The Washington Post, among many others.
Our judges and EastBanc Technologies team are passionate about supporting HackTJ knowing how much they have benefitted from similar experiences throughout their education and careers themselves. “Events like HackTJ are critical to the technology industry because they help foster an innovation mindset that students can strengthen and hone throughout their careers,” said Victor Shilo. “I have benefited and grown professionally from participating in hackathon events and am a huge proponent of them so the next generation can be exposed to today’s challenges and look at them with their unique perspective. We are always inspired by the students’ creativity and thoughtfulness and can’t wait for this year’s event.”
EastBanc Technologies CTO Victor Shilo and his colleague meeting former Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton after winning the Apps for Democracy hackathon, circa 2011.
HackTJ kicks off with an opening ceremony on April 16 that will feature remarks from EastBanc Technologies Chairman Wolf Ruzicka and the announcement of our three hackathon challenges. Winners will be announced during the closing ceremony on April 17.
Follow the action via @HackTJOfficial and @EastBancTech on Twitter, and EastBancTechnologies on LinkedIn.
Good luck to all of the HackTJ 2022 teams and stay tuned for this year’s winners!