Prizes

$10,000 IN CASH 💰

FOURTEEN TROPHIES 🏆

TWENTY ONE MEDALS 🏅

STAY TUNED: MORE NEWS COMING SOON

Best Use of MongoDB Atlas

$2,500 PRIZE

AI Innovation with MongoDB Atlas Vector Search

$2,500 PRIZE

CORPORATE CHALLENGE AWARDS 🏆 🏅

Enter an official corporate challenge team to compete for a chance to win from these trophies!

CULTURE CHAMPS

BEST OVERALL

BEST AI

BEST USE OF DATA

BEST DESIGN

MOST IMPACTFUL

MOST INNOVATIVE

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Hack Midwest?

A fast paced app building competition where teams of developers design and build ideas over 24 hours for a chance at thousands in prizes.
Hack? I'm in dev, not infosec!

Relax. In the programming world, "hacker" means something completely different
Who Can Attend?

Are you a software engineer or designer? This is for you!
Why should I attend?

Do you love building things? Do you want to be around other developers who do too? A chance to hone and demonstrate your skills? Learn about tools and new dev patterns? A chance at winning awesome prizes? Join us!

What if I don't have a team?

If you don't have a team, that's ok!! At the start of the hackathon, we make sure to help connect everyone whos not currently on a team! You'll be building new ideas AND making new friends!
Where Can I Sleep?

This is a 24 hour competition. Should you need to rest your eyes, feel free to do so. If you'd like to bring a pillow / sleeping bag, that's ok! There's plenty of room in the venue to take a nap (but no dedicated area for sleeping).
Will There Be Food At The Hackathon?

There will be 3 meals provided at the hackathon. Saturday Lunch & Dinner, and Sunday Breakfast. Outside of that, there there are numerous shopping\food options in the area if you want additional items, etc.
What APIs can I use?

You can use any APIs you want to build your apps, but if you want to compete for some of the prizes you'll need to do one (or more) of those listed challenges.
What if I don't have an idea?

Even the smallest ideas can become something much bigger when presented to other developers, who can improve upon it. But you never know until you try. You could always just be on a team with someone who you think has good ideas and help them build it. You'll be able to meet those kind of people at this event!

Rules

Programming Language

Applications may be built in any code that you please.
Fresh Code

No production assets of any kind can be created until the start of the official competition period illustrated above. This includes "ready to slice" graphic design assets, application code, and user stories / test cases. Some individuals have asked about frameworks and libraries - yes these ARE allowed, but 3rd party only. When in doubt: Plan, don't create.
Teams

Your teams should be comprised of between one and five individuals. You can pre-organize a team or we can try to help you find one at the event. No more than five people are allowed on a team. All participants must be present - no remote developers or teams are allowed.
24 Hours

Your team has exactly 24 hours to develop a mobile or web based application. After the initial 24 hours are up, you’ll be judged on what you’ve completed. No additional features or bugfixes are allowed during this period, or you will be disqualified.
Source Control

We’ll provide your team with a private Git repository, so we can ensure your code is fresh. As you develop your application, push progress to the assigned repository regularly (“commit early, commit often”) in order to demonstrate progress. Hack Midwest organizers will be observing checkins throughout the event. Don’t be tricky and try to develop your app in its entirety ahead of time, rebasing it and pushing it in at the last minute. Doing so could will get you disqualified. Before the contest ends, you must mark your entry as complete on your assigned Git profile and tag a release of your code with the word ‘HackMidwest’.

Ownership and Open Source

We’re just running a competition here…..so what you do with your source once the competition is over is up to you. We encourage participants to open source the codebase of their applications for the benefit of the community. However, if you choose not to open source your application, well that’s up to you. Please note that the competition organizers will have access to your code base throughout the competition, in order to make sure that no cheating occurs (as outlined previously). We won’t steal anything from you, promise! However, we do reserve the right to use your application’s likeness as a promotion for this or future contest.
Pitching Your App (Sunday)

** NO SLIDE DECKS** (see the NO SLIDE DECK rule for more info)
1. You’ve got 3 minutes to show us what you built and what it does. Make it count! Don't waste time on logins - be signed into your app already.

2. Tell a short story about the problem and share a couple of reasons why your team built this solution. Perhaps you might get creative – find a way to engage the audience.

3. Tell us if your app involves specific sponsor challenge(s) or sponsor APIs\Platforms.

What's an example of a great pitch? Click here to watch this video.
No Slide Decks

Your pitch must be done by showing the prototype you built during the competition. No slide decks, power points or anything else can be used at any time.
Judging

All judging will occur from the perspective of ‘joe average web jockey’. That is, code quality will not be judged. Your application will be judged based on a few criteria: 1) value / impact / usefulness , 2) innovative / unique (are excited about idea), 3) - realness / completeness (is it actually built / is it an actual MVP). Each judge will be able to rate each application on a scale of zero to ten (0-10). Hack Midwest organizers reserve the right to disqualify any team that is believed to be cheating or not competing in the spirit of the competition.

PRESENTED BY

OCT 11-12 KC *SPECIAL GUEST NASA ASTRONAUT*

As Seen In

"Hack Midwest changed my life..."

~ Ben Barreth

Stay updated

What Will You Build?

NASA SPECIAL GUEST

Watch the video

Prizes

$10,000 IN CASH 💰

FOURTEEN TROPHIES 🏆

TWENTY ONE MEDALS 🏅

STAY TUNED: MORE NEWS COMING SOON

Best Use of MongoDB Atlas

$2,500 PRIZE

AI Innovation with MongoDB Atlas Vector Search

$2,500 PRIZE

CORPORATE CHALLENGE AWARDS 🏆 🏅

CULTURE CHAMPS

BEST OVERALL

BEST AI

BEST USE OF DATA

BEST DESIGN

MOST IMPACTFUL

MOST INNOVATIVE

Frequently Asked Questions

Rules

What's an example of a great pitch? Click here to watch this video.

Thanks To Our Sponsors

Hack Midwest is made possible by the support of these forward thinking companies.They're helping to make KC a better place to live and work for tech! Do you want to get your name out there too? Get in touch!

Presenting

Blue Diamond

Diamond

Titanium

Platinum

Gold

Silver

Bronze

Stay updated

Schedule

Saturday, Oct 11th

09:00AM - Registration

09:30AM - Kickoff

12:30PM - Lunch

5:30PM - Dinner

Sunday, Oct 12th

08:00AM - Breakfast Break

09:00AM - Hackathon Ends!

09:30AM - App Demos Begin

11:00AM - Awards

OCT 11-12 KC
SPECIAL GUEST NASA ASTRONAUT

"Hack Midwest
changed my life..."

Hack Midwest is made possible by the support of these forward thinking companies.

They're helping to make KC a better place to live and work for tech!

Do you want to get your name out there too? Get in touch!