Each year McHacks is proud to welcome a diverse group of students from across North America to Montreal for a jam-packed weekend of hacking. This year, McHacks is going global! For 36 hours, the best and brightest students from around the world will connect remotely and build their dreams.

Whether you're writing your first line of code, playing around with APIs, or building the next blockchain, McHacks is the place for you. We offer workshops, mentorship, and APIs to get you started, and we’re working hard to make sure everything you need for your next big hack is accessible from home. We hope you’ll join us remotely this winter for an exciting eighth edition of Canada’s favorite hackathon!

Eligibility

If you applied to McHacks 8, received an acceptance, and also confirmed your attendance, you are eligible to attend McHacks.

If you attended and participated at McHacks 8, then you are eligible to make a submission. Each team must consist of no more than 4 participants.

Requirements

You must include videos, photos, or screenshots of the working product and a link to the source code (GitHub, etc.) of your project.

Please tag the prizes you would like to be considered for (other than the overall prizes, every team that submits will be considered for overall prizes).

Hackathon Sponsors

Prizes

$CAD27,092 in prizes

Top 5 Hacks (5)

The mega insane hacks you wish you thought of first. The top three teams will be awarded their choice of UMIDIGI Fitness Tracker, Echo Show 5, HyperX Mechanical keyboard.

People's Choice

The best hack as voted by YOU! Each team member will be awarded an Amazon Fire Stick.

Achievement Unlocked

The most fun and creative game dev hack. Each team member gets a $25 Steam gift card.

Best Design

The most ~aesthetic~ hack sporting nice UI/UX. Each team member gets a bluetooth mouse.

Best Newbie

The best hack made by a first-time hackathon team (at least half of the team are first-time hackers). Each team member gets a JetBrains IntelliJ Ultimate Idea license.

WFH

The best hack that improves WFH life. Each team member gets a Mr. Coffee Mug Warmer.

The Entertainer

The most entertaining or interesting demo for a hack. Each team member gets a 1080p Webcam.

Teacher's Pet

The best educational hack that could teach us a thing or two. Each team member gets $20 Amazon Giftcards.

Tree Hugger

The most ~sustainable~ hack that can help make the world a greener place. Each team member gets their very own set of bamboo toothbrushes.

Useless Stuff Nobody Needs

Yup, you read that right. The best hack that screams "sh*t that nobody needs". Each team member gets shower speakers.

Warm and Fuzzy

The best hack that just makes you feel good inside. Free (virtual) hugs and a few extra goodies will be awarded

Huawei Mental Health Challenge

Use your creativity to tackle today’s mental health issues. Each team member will be awarded their choice of HUAWEI WATCH GT 2 Pro Smartwatch or HUAWEI MediaPad M5 Lite 10.

Business-In-A-Box AI Chatbot Challenge

Build the best AI Chatbot possible. For this challenge, we want your Chatbot to act as a "project manager agent." Imagine a chatbot that takes on managing a team of people collaborating on a given project.

Create a chatbot that automatically confirms priorities for all team members in the morning and asks for progress status at the end of the day (stand-up). The bot should also monitor people's activity to proactively engage inactive contributors and follow up with people who do not complete tasks on time. This agent's goal is to stimulate the participation and sharing of information from all team members and finish the project on time. The project manager makes sure all team members are working on the right thing and are productive. The bot should notify its owner about productivity issues for projects, tasks, and team members.

You can develop it using any language, but Business-in-a-Box is built with JavaScript, NodeJS, VueJS, MongoDB, and MySQL running on Amazon AWS. Create your chatbot using open-source technology or a leading cloud service provider.

You can make your interface or integrate with Asana and Slack.

AI Challenge:
- How would you train the AI?
- How can the AI learn from all the discussions to write text automatically?
- Map the core functions and integrations.
- Make employee recommendations.

The winning team will receive $3,000, Scholarship Grant, Zoom Call with Bruno Goulet, CEO of Business-in-a-Box, Potential internship opportunity at Business-in-a-Box (Summer 2021), and Business-in-a-Box gifts and swags.

Novartis Reimagine Our Health Care System Challenge

We want you to be Inspired, Curious and Unbossed. How can we reimagine our health care system empowered by Data and Digital? Your proposal should consider the following:
- Patient identification
- Time to diagnosis
- Access to the right specialist
- Digital patient journey
- Remote monitoring
- Government backlog of file review
- Treatment Adherence - How can we ensure patients remain on therapy as prescribed?

Detection of non-adherent patients. The winning team members will each receive an interview with our Talent Acquisition team, an opportunity to participate in the Reverse-Mentoring program and a $250 gift certificate for Uber Eats.

Big Bang Challenge

The best hack to address the problem of productivity: an innovative solution for fostering cooperation among team members and enhancing cross-departmental communication. Each team member will be awarded a Big Bang swag bag, a $50 Amazon gift card, and an exclusive invitation to interview with our Recruiter and CEO for their next internship or full-time position.

Best Domain Registered with Domain.com

Register a .tech, .space, or .online domain name using Domain.com during the weekend. Each team may submit one entry per person on the team. Each winning team member will receive a PowerSquare Qi Wireless Phone Charger & Domain.com Backpack.

Best use of Google Cloud (2)

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. Members of the first place team will receive a Patagonia backpack and water bottle. Members of the second place team will receive a backpack.

Best Hardware Hack Sponsored by Digi-Key

Using your preferred hardware or hardware emulator, build a hack for your chance to win a Grove Beginner Kit, with Arduino Uno R3 included. We select two winning teams for this category. Each winning team member will receive a Grove Beginner Kit!

Devpost Achievements

Submitting to this hackathon could earn you:

Judges

Professors

Professors

Graduate Students

Graduate Students

Industry Mentors

Industry Mentors

Sponsor Judges

Sponsor Judges

Judging Criteria

  • Creativity & Originality
    Is this hack something new? Is it a creative use of technology? Is it a novel idea?
  • Technical Complexity
    Which technologies did you use? How technically challenging is it? Which part of the project did you make? (Non-API)
  • Enjoyment and Polish
    Is the hack fun to use? Is the interface polished? Is the user experience fun to use?
  • Practicality and Usefulness
    Is the hack useful? Does it raise social awareness or help under-privileged and under-represented people in any way?

Questions? Email the hackathon manager

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