Over the past decade, ‘the Hackathon’ has taken the world by storm. If one is to mention the word “hackathon”, people first think of cyber security. People think that a Hackathon would be an event only for hackers. ‘Hackers’ were always described as young vagrants or outlaws that acquire proficiency in computer science. Nowadays, hackers are people with a technical background. In recent years, the Hackathon is the type of event that provides a venue for self-expression and innovaton through design, programming and any other activities that are related to technology. With all of this, HackShanghai--known as the largest collegiate Hackathon in China, finished its second largest event at NYU Shanghai. With the efforts of a highly organized and collaborative team, and dozens of volunteers, HackShanghai became the first bilingual hackathon in the world that requires participants to code a unique solution from ground up in 24 hours. From 25 countries and more than 100 prestigious universities such as Harvard, Caltech, MIT, NYU, Peking University, 250 top college students participated in the Hackathon. Contributions from participants took shape in the form of hardware, mobile apps, and robots. The 24-hour event was primarily sponsored by business institutions, including ICBC, Goldman Sachs and DBS. Tech companies like IBM, Wolfram and EPAM also sponsored the event. As an organizer of the event, we were trying to make this event a symbolic and dynamic bridge, tightening the areas of business and technology. Furthermore, we also try to make the hackathon correspond to not just our school’s policies and interests, but also the Shanghai Local Government’s new formed policies. With the event being based around the idea of innovation, the Hackathon had more than 60 excellent projects, with this year’s first-prize winning project being the “Rolling Ball”. It is an app that enables to calculate the angle and speed of certain devices by using multiple sensors on the mobile device. Once the app receives real-time data, it allows its user to transfer a virtual ball from one device to another. As the Co-Director of HackShanghai, it was my honor to represent HackShanghai on behalf of Alex and myself -- the two directors of this event. I want to thank the sponsors, the outstanding participants from 25 different countries and the 100 different participating universities. I want to thank the NYU Shanghai student-organizing team, volunteers, all staff members here at NYU Shanghai who have helped us create this great idea and wonderful platform for exercising creativity. And we could not have this event without all of your support. This article was written by Yanming Zhang. Please send an email to [email protected] to get in touch. Photo Credit: Kacper Krasowiak.