🚀 OtterHacks: CSUMB’s First-Ever Hackathon 🚀

As the President of Women in Computer Science (WiCS) at CSUMB, I’m thrilled to share a major milestone our team achieved: Co-hosting OtterHacks, CSUMB’s first-ever hackathon! 🎉 

Introduction speech

The idea for OtterHacks was born when me, our club treasurer Maitreyi Gharat and publicity coordinator Ann Jojo attended CalHacks and felt inspired to bring a similar sense of innovation and tradition to CSUMB. We envisioned an event that not only tested technical skills but also created a space for collaboration, creativity, and excitement around tech at our university. 

Thanks to the incredible support of my amazing team

— Bryanna Dormer (Vice President) 

— Mursal Wafa (Secretary) 

— Maitreyi Gharat (Treasurer) 

— Ann Jojo (Publicity Coordinator) 

— and our collaboration with the Programming Team, we turned this vision into reality! Special shoutout to Rafael L.S Reis, the President of the Programming Team, for designing challenging and fun HackerRank problems that really tested the participants 🙌 

The Team

OtterHacks Highlights: 

✅ Over 30 participants competed to solve as many HackerRank questions as possible in the shortest time. 

✅ Google-funded prizes (a monitor, speakers, and a mouse) were awarded to the top three winners. 

✅ Delicious food and a fun, energetic atmosphere kept everyone going throughout the event. 

✅ We gathered feedback through surveys to improve future events—many participants suggested team-based or project-based challenges inspired by ICPC! 

Students ready to hack

This event would not have been possible without the invaluable support of Dr. Joshua Gross, Chair of the School of Computing and Design, Dr. Bude Su, and the generous funding from Google.

OtterHacks is just the beginning of what we hope will become a long-standing tradition of innovation at CSUMB. 💻 We’re excited to keep building a stronger tech culture on campus and can’t wait to see what the next hackathon will bring! 

Winners Top 3 Prizes

To all the participants, organizers, and supporters — thank you for making OtterHacks a success! Here’s to many more tech events at CSUMB!

Our first-ever hackathon flyer