York Region, ON – For the third year in a row, York Region District School Board secondary school students expanded their learning through a student-led hackathon.
About 350 students from over 25 different schools participated, creating more than 70 different projects. Nearly 65 per cent of the participants had never been part of a hackathon before.
The hackathon was held starting at 6:00 p.m. on Friday, March 3 until 4:00 p.m. the following day. This year’s event was originally scheduled to be hybrid, however, due to a snowstorm, the event was moved entirely online.
Jennifer Yu, co-chair of the 2023 edition of YRHacks, and a grade 11 student at Maple H.S., has been involved with the event since its inception in 2021. She became an executive in 2022 (marketing and outreach) before becoming co-chair this year.
“I was so impressed by the speed and efficiency with which adjustments were made to ensure the hackathon could still run online,” Yu said. “In terms of the hackathon itself, it was so nice to see plentiful participation, despite having switched to a fully virtual event last minute. It was gratifying to see so many participants attend the workshops and activities we hosted, and I was so impressed with all the projects the participants were able to create in less than 24 hours!”
Jeffery Wu, co-lead for the 2023 event, is in his second year of helping to organize YRHacks in 2023. In his grade 11 year, he was a member of the finance group, before becoming a member of the leadership team this year. The Alexander Mackenzie H.S. student explained that YRHacks gives students the opportunity to grow their learning beyond what they learn in the classroom, mentioning that a couple of his favourite learning opportunities from past years included the cyber security workshop and the introduction to new technologies.
Wu said there will be a fourth year of YRHacks in 2024, adding that it is in no small part thanks to the group’s “amazing supervisors and advisors.” He said that while he won’t be part of it, due to leaving YRDSB for university, he will be helping to select his successor(s). “I have full trust that the people we’ll find will be as amazing as (this) year,” he said, adding “maybe the next team will include someone you know.”
Over the past three years, YRHacks has made its mission to bring YRDSB secondary school students together and create a welcoming and exciting hackathon experience for them. The event, and the organization as a whole, gives students the opportunity to experiment with coding and gain insight about the computer science field with its workshops, engage with current social issues and bring their ideas to life, all with the possibility of winning one of many prizes.
You can connect with YRHacks online by visiting its website or following @yrhacks on Instagram.
York Region District School Board is the third largest school district in Ontario with over 127,000 students in 180 elementary schools and 33 secondary schools. York Region students consistently perform above average in provincial testing and the Board is one of the top achievers in Ontario. For more information about York Region District School Board, please visit the Board website and follow @YRDSB on Twitter.
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