Technical and Business Students Learn Lessons About Teamwork Under Pressure
SDLC Partners held its first Hackathon event on September 22-23, 2018 at their Solution Center in PPG One, downtown Pittsburgh. The event hosted over 70 participants, including a mix of employees and undergraduate and graduate students from the University of Pittsburgh, Duquesne University, and Carnegie Mellon University.
Sixteen teams spent 12 hours collaborating on Saturday to come up with an innovative, functional product that they demonstrated as a working solution to a panel of noteworthy judges on Sunday afternoon.
The winning teams included:
- First place to the Vulcan team from the University of Pittsburgh who received the $2,000 grand prize.
- Second place, and a $1,000 prize went to the Hacking Zombies team from the University of Pittsburgh.
- Third place went to the Brewing JAVA team of employees from SDLC Partners.
One team of undergraduate students from Duquesne was so impressive that the panel of judges created a category called “Spirit of Hackathon” and that team will also receive a prize.
The panel of guest judges included professionals and entrepreneurs from the region, including:
Tom Sieg, Vice President of Product Development & Management at HM Health Services.
Ketaki Desai, PhD, Director of Growth Capital at FortyX80
Matt Ross, CISM, CISSP, CISO at Teletracking.
David Kalson, Director and Chair of the Emerging Business Group at Cohen & Grigsby, P.C.
Kit Mueller, Community Head at Choolaah Indian BBQ
“The best part was to see the teams working on real problems and creating real solutions. Many of the students had to use technology that they’d never seen before, which was impressive.”
Chris Simchick, co-founder and CEO, SDLC Partners.
Scott Barnyak, co-founder and chief sales and marketing officer, highlights the value of team-based hackathons, “Again and again, students told our folks that they learned so much from working with our employee-mentors, presenting to our remarkable panel of judges, as well as how to come together as a team under pressure.”
The Hackathon Inside View
The Hackathon Sponsors
SDLC Partners, L.P. is an essential leader of the Pittsburgh technology and business ecosystem. As a consultancy focused on delivering high-performance solutions for connecting business and technology, they have grown into a 400-person firm, garnering awards and attention from the Pittsburgh Technology Council, the Inc. 5000, the Pittsburgh 100, and E&Y’s Entrepreneur of the Year.