Oxford Hack 2019 is the latest incarnation of the university’s annual Hackathon, happening this time on the 16th - 17th November. It’s an exciting, inclusive coding event, encouraging student teams of all backgrounds to build something brilliant - in 24 hours.
With so much talent under one roof, the only limit is your imagination. Step - or dive - out of your comfort zone, try a new language or platform, design a cool game or train an ingenious model: the choice is up to you.
Prizes
Hack (for) The Planet
For this award, you’ve got to think big.
Big enough to save the world from the climate crisis, the seas from pollution, or any of the issues we’re facing. Your product can help raise awareness about energy usage, advocate for public transport or recycling, or any other topic that impacts our planet. True change requires everyone to be on board, so the product should be as user-friendly as possible!
Most Entertaining Hack
Make something fun!
Your product is positively brimming with amusement and charm. It isn’t necessarily a game, as long as it creates an enjoyable experience. While bugs and glitches can sometimes be funny, we don’t want to laugh at incompleteness, so you’ll need quality along with your entertainment!
Hackers' Choice
Give the people what they want!
We don’t actually know what you should make for this award, since it’ll be voted for by your fellow attendees. Perhaps you can build a cool toolset to improve their productivity, or appeal to their fun side with a witty pitch. Think about a product you’d like to see made by another team - chances are your result will be appreciated by others too!
Most Inventive Hack
Make something innovative!
Your team’s not just thinking outside the box - they’re thinking outside the whole building. Your product might solve a problem we didn’t even know we had, in a way we didn’t even know could be done. You could utilize new technologies, or apply your avant-garde ideas to established workflows - as long as it’s remarkable!
Most Stylish Hack
Make something dazzling!
24 hours doesn’t give much opportunity to make a well-polished interface, but this product made time for it, and more. Your product is intuitive and responsive, and has a generally good-looking design. It’s hard to convey all this in an elevator pitch, so try and get a working demo for people to try out!
Hack for Social Good
Make something to enhance society!
Your product takes an innovative stance to solve a problem for society - be it education, healthcare, social media, or anything else you think could be improved. The product could help charities accomplish their goals, raise awareness of misinformation, or evolve the public political discourse. Accessibility is vital if you want widespread use of your product!
'Hackiest' Hack
It works! ...surprisingly.
For this award, your project takes on an ambitious challenge, and just about pulls it off. You could mix a handful of tools together, use APIs in unexpected ways, or partake in other dubious acts to get your idea off the ground. Many powerful projects rely on other technologies, and your team’s masterful at getting them to work together.
CompSoc: Most Useless Hack
The hack Oxford deserves, but not the one it needs right now.
The Oxford University Computer Society wants to empower you to do something no one else has dreamt of, because no one would ever want it. To win Most Useless Hack, you'll need to make something that's utterly useless, and do it in a really cool way.
OxAI: Best Use of AI
Cisco Collaboration Challenge
Cisco collaboration has a history of connecting people with voice and video for thirty years, with Cisco Webex hosting over 85 billion minutes of meetings ever year. Despite this, there are still unexplored ways people could be brought together with technology. We challenge participants to find a way to connect people in a new way – hacks will be judged on originality, usefulness, along with a special prize for greatest distance! While video is our strength (and you can certainly pick our brains for how to do things with it), any and all ideas are welcomed. For those who want at least some of the work of sending messages across the internet done for them, we're running a workshop to show teams how to build a chatbot on Webex Teams, but our technology is here to help, not a requirement!
Microsoft Challenge
Optiver Challenge
Intrigued by financial markets and algorithmic trading? We challenge you to develop a trading algorithm that can make a profit on our virtual exchange, while trading live against other hackers!
As a leading global electronic market maker that trades on more than 100 exchanges world-wide, it is our daily job to keep financial markets afloat. This is your opportunity to step into our shoes for one weekend and discover what it is like to build cutting-edge technology that powers today’s financial world.
In our workshop, we’ll teach you fundamental market-dynamics, and then, with some basic trading knowledge under your belt, you’re ready to delve into our challenge and find viable strategies that make money. Still sounds difficult? Don't worry, we’ll be on-site and excited to help you!
This is a unique opportunity to get to know our business in a way you otherwise wouldn’t, and win great prizes along the way!
Oudi Mobi
The challenge is to create an secure voice only operated sing up and login system into the Oudi.mobi™ social networking mobile software for users.
We are looking for a fast, accurate, secure and easy to use voice operated login / Sign up system into our social networking mobile platform.
Be creative / Think 10x simple but 100x more effective / Think out of the box / Create a futuer by not confirming to the consensus of conventional thinking.
Prize: Trophy, Oudi.mobi™ gift bag, Part time employment opportunities while at University (we are flexible around your academic time table) + CASH PRIZE!
Start Me Up
We’re challenging participants to develop a hack to support Indonesian micro-entrepreneurs who need financing and funding from international backers. Indonesia is at a pivotal moment. Its economy is growing but it needs more entrepreneurs to reduce its dependency on polluting industry, deforestation and fossil fuels.
There are many funding options available but small grassroots organisations are rarely notified of them. We think there's a better way. Over to you!
The winning team will get to join our 16-day Bali Startup Bootcamp (worth up to $8,000 for a team of four).
Best use of Google Cloud
Build your hackathon project with a suite of secure storage, powerful compute, and integrated data analytics products provided by Google Cloud. See full list of products here: g.co/cloud. Each winning team member will receive a Google Home Mini.
Best Domain Name from Domain.com
Register a domain using Domain.com during the weekend. Each team may submit one entry per person on the team. Each winning team member will receive a Domain.com branded backpack.
Best UiPath Automation Hack
Build an automation hack using UiPath! Each winning team member will receive a UiPath/MLH Branded Backpack and an opportunity to interview for a UiPath Internship in 2020 with a high recommendation!
Best use of Twilio
Create a hack using Twilio's powerful communications API. Do things like send SMS messages, phone calls, email, and much more in your project. The team that has the best use of Twilio will win a $50 Amazon gift card per team member.
Best use of Transposit
Only 24 hours to create your project? No problem, Create an app and compose different APIs together with the world's first API composition platform, Transposit. Each winning team member will receive a $50 Amazon gift card.
Devpost Achievements
Submitting to this hackathon could earn you:
Judges

Oxford Hack Judges
Judging Criteria
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TBA
Questions? Email the hackathon manager
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