About Us


Calling all programmers, designers, makers and leaders! TeenHacks LI is Long Island’s premier high school hackathon, by students, for students. Take part in group collaboration, interesting workshops, sweet prizes, and more. Get ready to meet new people and have an amazing time. Join our community as we build the future!

Founded by Jeffrey Yu and Wesley Pergament in 2018, we bring together the brightest students across the northeast to engage in “collaborative coding.” We hope to build a hacker community here on Long Island, with an emphasis placed on innovation and entrepreneurship.

Applying

Sign up for TeenHacksLI's 2024 Hackathon hosted at Hofstra University! Registration closes on January 7th, 2024! If you have questions regarding the application or deadlines, please email [email protected].


High school students, you’ve found the right place! We’re excited you want to come to TeenHacks LI.

We welcome undergrads, graduates, and tech professionals to attend as mentors! We’re looking for engineers, programmers, designers, and more to help guide our participants through their projects. Food will be provided during the event and you can stay for as long as you want. However, we do have limited space so please fill out this short application form.





FAQs


What is a hackathon?

It's a place where programmers, engineers, designers, and entrepreneurs come together to build an awesome project over several hours. We provide the venue and food, you bring the creativity. Get ready to learn, build something cool, and meet new people. Check out this article by Dave Fontenot to learn more! What is a Hackathon?

What if I’m a beginner?

Do not worry. TeenHacks LI encourages students of all levels to come! In addition, we will have workshops throughout the hackathon as well as mentors available to answer any of your questions.

Who can attend?

All high school students are welcome to attend. If you are older or younger and still want to participate as a hacker, shoot us an email. If you're older, we welcome you to sign-up as a mentor!

Does it cost anything?

TeenHacks LI is completely free, thanks to our generous sponsors! This will include food, swag, and awesome prizes.

What if I don't have a team?

In the beginning, we’ll have a team formation session to make sure you’re not alone. We encourage you to form teams of up to 4 members. Individuals will not be eligible for prizes.

Have other questions?

Send us an email at [email protected].

Schedule

Sunday, January 21st

8:15AM:
Check-in (Until 10AM)
8:45AM:
Opening Ceremony
9:00AM:
Hacking Starts
9:15AM
Intro to Hackathons Presentation (Main Hall)
9:30AM
Pygame Game Dev Workshop (Room 231)
9:30AM
Intro to Web Development (Room 232)
10:30AM
Intro to C++ (Room 231)
11:00AM
APIs 101 with Lillian Nose (Room 232)
11:30AM
Scaling Your Project Into A Startup (Room 231)
12:30PM
Tech Panel (Room 231)
12:30PM
Echo3D AR/VR Workshop (Room 232)
1:00PM
Lunch Time (Main Hall)
1:00PM
Fun Activites (ie. Kahoots, Blookets, etc.)
1:30PM
Graph Theroy Workshop (Room 231)
2:30PM
Intro to Machine Learning (Room 232)
3:30PM
SVM Machine Learning (Room 231)
4:30PM
Devpost Submission Help
5:00PM
End of Hacking
5:00PM
Project Showcase
6:00PM
End of Event

Sponsors & Partners


Diamond



Gold



Silver



Bronze


Community




More Coming Soon!


If you're interested in partnering with us, send our sponsorship team an email at [email protected].

Blog Posts


Bracing for Takeoff With Flying Car

By: Brian Lim
Flying cars are finally coming! For decades, when asked to imagine the technology of the future, the stock answer has been flying cars. In the 1950s and ’60s, they represented the promise of a high-tech future, the inevitable outcome of relentless American ingenuity. For the generations that came after, they grew to represent something else — the failure of that future to manifest.
Read More

Meet Grok: Elon Musk’s Latest Revelation

By: Brian Lim
Created by Musk’s new AI company, xAI, Grok is modeled on “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” It is supposed to have “a bit of wit,” “a rebellious streak,” and it should answer the “spicy questions” that other AI might dodge, according to a Saturday statement from xAI. According to Musk, the chatbot “loves sarcasm” and responds with “a little humor”, hoping that giving Grok more personality will allow it to stand out in an increasingly crowded market.
Read More

The Best Kind of Rock to Live Under

By: Florence Liang
For over 125 years, the United States had not witnessed a hurricane as devastating as Idalia. Yet, as the world continues to industrialize, we feel the effects of climate change through such disasters. Without the urgency to enforce climate-aware guidelines or curb consumerism’s expansion, the human race has sought other ways to mitigate the effects of emerging climate backlash.
Read More

Alexander Xu, Executive
Director

Alexander is a senior at Great Neck South High School. With a keen interest in competitive programming, artificial intelligence, and web development, he finds joy in exploring the various facets of computer science. What truly excites Alexander is coding with his peers. He founded his school's annual programming contest and now aspires to connect with students on a larger scale at TeenHacks LI. This year, his vision is to equip students across the North East with the necessary skills, insight, and connections to begin their own ventures while ensuring a COVID-safe hacking environment. Besides programming, Alexander finds fulfillment in camping with his Boy Scout Troop and as an emergency medical technician.

alex1xu

Flora Qiu, Director of Marketing and Graphics

Flora is currently a senior at Jericho High School and has a passion of creating and problem-solving. Her curiosity of technology and her foundation in STEM allowed her to build her passion for coding and programming. She has attended coding and programming competitions such as ACSL, gaining experience in a variety of problems. Working in TeenHacks LI, she hopes to interact with other talented students and learn much more about the progress of technology around the world. She also hopes to contribute back to the community by showing youths the wonders of the technological world, allow more interaction and knowledge spreading in Long Island and beyond.

Flora Qiu
florayq

Laura Zhang, Director
of Finance

Laura is currently a junior at Great Neck South High School and enjoys problem-solving and design. She is interested in using engineering and coding to provide practical and applicable solutions in the real world. Her favorite hobbies include drawing, listening to music, running, and solving math and physics problems. Laura is excited to be part of a team that shares a common love for STEM and improving the community. She hopes to make an impact on her community by inspiring more students to become involved with STEM and coding and sharing new opportunities with others.

Robert Cherkas, Director of
Logistics

Robert is a senior at Paul D. Schreiber High School in Port Washington. Throughout his 3 years in high school, he has grown a fascination for technology and has explored the world of electronics and coding. Robert is always in favor of events that can bring together people from many different places and believes that hackathons are a spectacular way to achieve that. He hopes that through hackathons, he can interact with people whom he would have never otherwise connected with.

Robert Cherkas
Robert-Cherkas

Lydia Zhou, Director of
Public Relations

Lydia is a junior at Jericho Senior High School who is passionate about programming, math, and art. She is intrigued by artificial intelligence and hopes to discover new opportunities to implement it in personal projects and learning, as well as ways to blend artistic creativity and innovation with machine learning. In her free time, Lydia enjoys learning new languages, volunteering at her local library and community, reading, playing the violin, drawing, and hiking with friends. She creates core curriculum for and teaches children at summer camp to inspire the younger generation to collaborate and be curious. Through directing outreach in TeenHacks LI, she strives to motivate girls to pursue computer science and promote the continued growth of STEM.

Lydia Zhou
lyzh1

Kyle Liao, Director of Programming

Kyle is a senior at Thomas A. Edison Career and Technical Education High School. He's a cybersecurity student and is an avid hackathon attendee. From video games to full-stack applications, to OSINT research, to a DIY kayak, he's built his fair share of interesting projects. As a leader of a hack club chapter and organizer of its events, he's looking forward to making TeenHack LI's hacker experience one of the best as the director of the programming committee with impeccably planned unique activities and experiences.

Kyle Liao
thekyleliao
Kyle Liao

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