Edmon Berry and Jared Zoneraich, organizers of hackBca.

(Myles Ma/NJ.com)

HACKENSACK — A hacking competition organized by a team of Bergen County Academies students has drawn big-name judges, including the co-founders of Reddit and Vine, as well as big-name sponsors.

Its organizers advertise HackBCA, scheduled for March 22 at Bergen County Acadmies, as one of the first hackathons organized for high school students.

Jared Zoneraich, a 16-year-old junior from Wyckoff, has attended several hackathons. While he has seen high school students compete and even win, the all-night programming competitions are normally geared toward college students.

HackBCA is open only to students who are high school-age or younger. And while they will be competing, Zoneraich said the emphasis will be on collaboration and learning.

“The community of high schoolers at these hackathons is growing,” Zoneraich said.

“Hacking” can take on a negative connotation, but in the context of a hackathon, it simply means coming up with something clever, quickly.

“It’s probably the best way to learn about programming,” Zoneraich said.

Students who don’t know anything about coding can still attend and learn from programs and talks throughout the night.

Zoneraich and fellow organizer Edmon Berry, a 16-year-old junior from Hackensack, haven’t followed the hacker aesthetic in putting HackBCA together. They have been working on it since the summer.

Zoneraich and Berry hope to get 500 participants to sign up. It’s a reach, but they think they can do it.

“It’s pretty attainable to get really close to 500,” Berry said.

The two hope sponsors will pay the entire cost of the competition. They have drawn several so far, including the Flatiron School, Github and Warby Parker.

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Bergen County Academies has allowed them to host the competition in the gym. And Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit, and Colin Kroll, co-founder of Vine are among the people signed up to judge, after receiving cold emails from Zoneraich and Berry.

They sent similar emails to many tech luminaries, including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.

“No harm in trying,” Zoneraich said.

Find out more at the hackBCA website »