2024 Hacks with Friends

Register today for Hacks with Friends 2024

Arbor Lakes Office Complex, University of Michigan

Register today! The 2024 Hacks with Friends (HWF) takes place November 14 – 15 at Arbor Lakes. HWF is a spirited event open to all University of Michigan technology professionals and advocates, regardless of role. Participate on a team to build a project (a.k.a. “hack”) from beginning to end and show it off in a fun, friendly competition. You never know — you might start something that would benefit the entire university!

Everyone is invited to join us in person for this hackathon: brainstormers, visionaries, project managers, analysts, developers, UX designers, documentation specialists, designers, security specialists, trainers, desktop support specialists, cheerleaders, or whoever you are.

Pick up new skills, make new connections, explore new technologies, and find innovative ways to resolve problems. The only limit is your imagination.

New Final Round for 2024 Hacks with Friends

To provide more time to hack and expand the reach of what Hacks with Friends is all about, we are taking the 2024 Hacks with Friends Finals on the road to the Winter Innovation Expo (WIE) on December 10.

Representatives from the top four 2024 HWF teams will make their final 10-minute presentation in front of a distinguished panel of judges and WIE attendees during the main opening session of the Expo. Judges will deliberate and winners will be announced during the closing session of the Expo. In addition, each of the top teams will submit a poster of their hack to display during the Expo Poster Session. All registered WIE attendees will qualify to cast their vote for the People’s Choice Award.

Review the 2024 Pitches

Review the 14 pitch proposals for hacks submitted by colleagues around the Michigan IT community and see which one sparks your interest. Everyone who registers will select a pitch team to join when they register to attend HWF.

This year’s pitches fit into one of three tracks:

Gen AI Track: Unlocking the Power of Artificial Intelligence
Pitches in this track delve into the transformative potential of generative AI. They foster collaborative learning and growth to create groundbreaking AI solutions to evoke positive ramifications on higher education at U-M.
Technology Track: Revitalize Traditional Hacks and Bring Ideas to Life
This is the “classic” hacking track! Pitches in this track tackle those back-burner projects that have the potential to make a significant impact at U-M. Pitches in this track seek to refine existing tools or develop a new solution by focusing on those creative ideas that often get sidelined.
Human-Based (Non-Code) Track: Empowering People, Enhancing Processes
The “human-based” track is designed for pitches that would enhance non-technical aspects of the IT environment, such as leadership, professional development, change management, mentoring, or diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. Participants come together to address common challenges, develop new processes, innovate business practices, drive meaningful change, and improve the U-M IT ecosystem.

AI Platform Guidance Session for HWF Participants

Register today and join us via Zoom on Friday, November 8, 2024, at 10:00 AM for an AI guidance session hosted by Jen Wilkerson and Ben Andries, from the ITS Emerging Technology team. This session will provide insights into leveraging the U-M AI Platform for your Hacks with Friends project. All registered participants will receive an invite to the session.

As a bonus, the Emerging Tech team will offer access to our U-M GPT Toolkit service for all Hacks with Friends participants who attend this session. The U-M GPT Toolkit service allows you to build applications that can programmatically interact with various large language models, including GPT-4O, GPT-4O-min, GPT-35-turbo, and GPT-4-turbo.

Can you hack it? The answer is YES!

Hacks with Friends is open to all technology professionals and advocates who work on any of the four University of Michigan campuses. It is a great opportunity to meet new people, build something new, and strengthen the Michigan IT community. Whoever you are... Whatever your passion… We want you to be a part of it!

Hacks with Friends is in its 11th year and is sponsored by the U-M office of the vice president for IT and CIO. See the results of past Hacks with Friends events to discover how the event has evolved over the years.