We are very excited to announce that the University of Manchester has won the Official 2018 Europe MLH Hackathon Season, maintaining their leading status in the League from 2017.
Here were the top 10 Europe schools:
- University of Manchester
- King’s College London
- Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya
- University College London
- Imperial College London
- The University of Sheffield
- The University of Edinburgh
- Aston University
- City University London
- The University of St Andrews
The 2018 MLH Europe Hackathon Season (running from August 2017 – July 2018) included 28 amazing events, 6,000+ hackers and 1,000+ projects. We also saw the first ever hackathon at the Vatican to hack for social good, bringing the Europe League to a new global audience.
Each Hackathon Season, MLH determines a school winner through a combination of merit points (earned when students from your school build winning projects) and participation points (earned when students from your school simply participate at a hackathon).
With their annual hackathon, GreatUniHack, happening this weekend with over 200 participants, it is only appropriate to also congratulate the students from University of Manchester and HackSoc on spreading hacker culture by both attending and winning more European hackathons than any other universities.
HackSoc is the official University of Manchester’s tech society and has continued to influence the growth of this community in many ways. More students are now travelling to hackathons outside the UK than ever before. More first year students, who were initially afraid of signing up for hackathons, are now signing up. And more students from outside Computer Science are joining their events, resulting in more diverse people from more diverse backgrounds participating in hackathons.
We reached out to Luke Beamish who helps manage the Manchester Society to learn what has contributed to the success of the community over the years.
What were your visions for the community this year?
We hope to build on the success of previous committees and expand the society to be more open for students without the traditional CS background. We also aim to foster more friendly links with other universities, using their own experiences to help them grow.
How does HackSoc build out such a great hacker culture?
We share all hackathons that might be happening and are of interest school wide. We encourage students to go to augment their learning. The department helps by offsetting costs, providing access to hardware and recognising wins and interesting hacks. We run our own hackathons where people who have never been to hackathons before can get their feet wet before taking the plunge.
How has MLH affected HackSoc and the growth of GreatUniHack over the past years?
MLH played a major role in helping to get our early hackathons organised and therefore helped lay the foundations of the society we have today. More recently, success in the league has helped to boost our image and make our volunteers proud to be a part a flourishing community.Winning the MLH Europe League means recognition in the fact that we are indeed doing something right as a society when it comes to attending and building winning projects at hackathons and encourages their members to attend even more MLH events this season.
Make sure to congratulate the hackers from the University of Manchester for maintaining their leadership position in the community and spreading hacker culture to the world!
Want to win this season?
Major League Hacking’s 2019 season is already in high gear and in-progress standings will be available soon. There are 16 awesome Europe MLH Member Event hackathons announced and many more to come. Attend an event near your school soon!
Never been to a hackathon before? Don’t worry! Hackathons are for beginners too and we’ve seen first time hackers win some of the largest events.
Aiming to win can be fun but remember that hackathons are about learning, building and sharing above all.
Happy Hacking!