Georgia Institute of Technology Wins the 2017 MLH North American Hackathon Season

The 2017 MLH Hackathon Season powered by Dell and Windows (running from August 2016 – July 2017) was our biggest yet. More than 65,000 hackers came to MLH Member hackathons around the world to learn, build, and share technology with their friends.

Our North American season hosted 190 Member Hackathons, with students from more than 3,000 universities and high schools coming out to build awesome hacks.

Out of that massive pool of schools and events, Georgia Institute of Technology reigned supreme. They had the highest number of merit points and the second highest number of participation points across the 2017 Season. Combined, this brought them to victory.

Merit points are gathered by having students from your school build winning projects at a hackathon. While winning is not the main focus of hackathons, it is important to recognize the creativity and polish required to receive an award at an event. Winning hacks also give other hackers something to inspire them and something for them to aspire to.

Participation points are gathered by sending groups of students from your school to participate in hackathons. These points are balanced so that small and large schools can make an impact on the MLH rankings. Sending 500 students to one event (like your school’s own hackathon) is balanced against sending 30 to another event across the country.

1st Place: Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech)

More than four years ago, a group of Georgia Tech students led by Shehmeer Jiwani and Pavleen Thukral started attending MLH hackathons en mass. This kicked off their first hackathon, Hackatech, which evolved into HackGT, its fourth iteration happening this weekend in Atlanta with more than 1,000 hackers participating. Georgia Tech has risen through the MLH rankings from 16th place in Fall 2013 to 6th place in Spring 2016 to 1st place in the 2017 Season.

Tonight, we’re at Georgia Tech for HackGT presenting them with the MLH Season Trophy and soon with $50,000 of equipment for their hacker club from Dell and Windows, our 2017 Season flagship partners.

Make sure to congratulate the hackers from Georgia Tech if you see them at an event!

Top Ten Schools

Second and third place went to past winners – University of Waterloo and Rutgers University.

Outside of our steady top five, there were some big changes this season:

The University of Toronto rose significantly in the rankings from 12th place in Spring 2016 to 6th today.

New York University also made huge gains from 26th place in Spring 2016 to 7th place this season.

And lastly, Stony Brook University rose from 21st place to 9th place. Go Seawolves!

We congratulate all of the rising hacker communities across North America and wish you luck in the 2018 Season!

Check out the top 10 schools below:

Overall Rank School Attendance Rank Merit Rank 1 Georgia Institute of Technology 1 2 2 Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey 2 3 3 The University of Waterloo 3 1 4 The University of Florida 6 6 5 The University of Toronto 8 5 6 The University of Maryland, College Park 12 4 7 New York University 10 7 8 The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 13 10 9 Florida International University 4 30 10 Stony Brook University, SUNY 9 12

You can find the rest of the season rankings by clicking here.

Top Mexican School: Tec de Monterrey

Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM or Tec de Monterrey) was the top Mexican school again this season! Tec de Monterrey hosted another round of HackMTY in August and participated in almost every Mexican event, and many in the US as well.

Top High School: West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South

Our high school winners this season came from a public high school in Princeton, NJ. Students from their school participated in seven hackathons and brought home a number of wins, cementing them slightly ahead of reigning champion Thomas Jefferson High School. Good job, West Windsor-Plainsboro hackers!

Top European Schools

See our European rankings and winner announcement here. Congratulations to the University of Manchester!

Want to win this season?

Major League Hacking’s 2018 season has already begun and in-progress standings are available here. There are more than 80 North America MLH Member hackathons already announced and many more to come. Attend an event near your school soon!

Never been to a hackathon before? Don’t worry! Hackathons are for beginners too and we’ve seen first time hackers win some of the largest events.

Aiming to win can be fun but remember that hackathons are about learning, building and sharing above all.

Happy Hacking!