HackKing’s 2022

On the 19th of November, KCL Tech re-launched their annual hackathon HackKing’s for the first time since the pandemic, bringing together around 200 students from across King’s for the 14-hour event.

For those unaware, a hackathon is known as a 12-24 hour long invention marathon. Participants work in teams, or on their own, to create awesome products from scratch, learn new skills and have some fun along the way! People from all backgrounds and education are welcome, and learning the requisite skills is half the fun.

Working in teams of 5 for 12 hours, participants had the option to choose either a technical challenge by the event sponsors Blackrock where they were to create a product to answer the question “How can we take advantage of the changing technological landscape to contribute to a better future?” or a non-technical challenge by ourselves, pitching a technology-based solution to improving student life.

During the day participants also had the opportunity to attend a workshop about a range of APIs that could be incorporated into a solution for the technical challenge as well as a mini-career fair where they could learn about available roles and how to upskill to get the best chances of landing a job in tech. A range of snacks and drinks were on offer for free to all participants as well as lunch and dinner to keep energy levels high.

At the end of the day, the top 3 teams for each challenge were invited to pitch their work for 2-3 minutes each to see who would take the grand prize.

The winning team for the technical challenge was Team25k (made up of Kenza Amira, Selvan Kumar, Yu-Hsun Wang, Liu Hsiao Ching, and Yingming Luo) who created a real-time hand gesture recognition application for healthcare workers so that they can interact with devices without having to remove protective equipment. Each team member won a Nintendo Switch and Mario Party Superstars game.

For the non-technical challenge, the winning team called WeekKan (made up of Lile Zhang Zhuo, Mateia Curigut, Jieun Lee, Emanuele Croci, and Ved Kaura) created an idea for a social media app that connects students with similar goals and interests to help them attend events together, each winning a £20 gift card.

HackKing’s was just the first of this year’s KCL Tech hackathons with more in the pipeline for later in the year and the prospect of even having a 24-hour format once again in addition. Congratulations to all those who took part, developing a range of skills from teamwork to time management, and developing an entrepreneurial mindset in a short time.