AnimalHack 2024

Date: September 8, 2024
Devpost
Discord
Email

Who

We are a group of students from the Boston, New York and Seattle areas who were disappointed with the lack of international, open hackathons that focus on animals, so we started our own. 

AnimalHack is hosted by Binnovative, a nonprofit organization in Massachusetts.

About

AnimalHack is an online hackathon for anyone who interacts with any animals – including pets, service animals, farm animals and wild animals.

AnimalHack offers a platform that inspires you to think of needs, wants and challenges in interacting with animals. It is intended to help you ignite creative solutions (hacks) with technology and innovate human-animal relationships.

Overview

Event: September 8 (Sun), 1pm, EST

Project submission due: September 7 (Sat), 12pm, EST

Participants: Solo and team contestants

Background: Anyone of all ages and all technical skills, from limited experience to advanced.

Entry: Free

Merchandise: TBD

Expected Project Topics

Expected project topics include, but are not limited to: 

  • Contributing to animal wellbeing 
  • Assisting animal owners 
  • Assisting animal adoptions 
  • Monitoring, conserving and improving the environment around animals 
  • Observing, tracing and protecting wild animals 
  • Breeding, rearing/farming and harvesting animals 
  • Managing nuisance issues with wildlife
  • Addressing animal abuse, cruelty and illegal capture/trade

Solutions can take many different forms such as apps, games, social platforms, web sites/services, devices, robots, data collection/storage, data analysis/forecasts, data visualization, information retrieval, and 3-dimensional modeling/printing. 

Requirements

Project Work: AnimalHack is a “flexible” online hackathon. You can work on your project anytime until 12pm on September 7 (Sat), EST.

Project Submission: You are required to complete ALL of the following 3 requirements:

  • Submit your project to Devpost by 12pm on September 7 (Sat), EST.
  • Register your project presentation on a Google Forms page by 12pm on September 7 (Sat), EST.
  • Give a project presentation online at September 8 (Sun), EST.

The deadlines are firm. No extensions will be given. Failure to meet the above requirements will disqualify you (and your team) in award judging.

A link for presentation registration will be shared in the AnimalHack 2024 channel of Discord. To register your presentation, you will be asked to submit:

  • Your name and contact info
  • Your country of residence
  • Your project presentation title
  • An abstract (short one-paragraph description) of your project
  • A publicly accessible link to your project placed on an online code repository (e.g. GitHub) or online storage (e.g. Google Drive). We will verify the actual outcome of your work with this link in the afternoon of September 7. Please note that we will not schedule your presentation if we cannot verify your actual work. You can submit a link to your project on Devpost; however, please make sure that the link references the actual outcome of your work.

Project Presentation: We will announce the schedule of project presentations (i.e. what time each presentation starts) by early morning of September 8 (Sun), EST. A Zoom link will be made available in the AnimalHack 2024 channel of Discord.

In our current plan, you will have 10 minutes in total for your presentation, including approx. 3 minutes for QAs with judges and other participants.

Book Publication

We will publish a book that features the projects presented at AnimalHack 2024. Selected participants will be invited to extend their project abstracts and publish them as book chapters. We are planning to publish this book through Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing.

Prizes and Judging

Prizes: AnimalHack plans to offer various prizes:

  • Grand Prix (1st Place)
  • 2nd Place
  • 3rd Place
  • Honorable Mentions (x3)
  • Excellence in Innovation Award
  • Excellence in Research Award
  • Excellence in Creativity Award
  • Excellence in Entrepreneurship Award
  • Emerging Talent Award
  • Key Contributor Award

A panel of judges will select and announce award winners at the end of the event. Prize winners will receive certificates.

Judging Criteria:

  • Impact: How much impact (quality and quantity) can this project have? Does it solve a big problem or a small problem? Will it inspire or help many or a few?
  • Creativity: How creative/innovative is this project? Is it something that hasn’t been attempted before, or is it an incremental improvement on something that already exists?
  • Presentation: How well did the team/individual communicate this project? Was the presentation effective in telling the story of the project: why it is important, what challenge it addresses, and how it delivers a solution?

Judges:

Eriko Nishimoto

Sarasa Ouchi

AnimalHack Advisory Board

Organizing Committee

  • Yuma Karube (Co-chair)
  • Rei Nagata
  • Shun Nagata
  • Banri Ouchi (Co-chair)
  • Hanna Suzuki
  • Alyssa Yasuhara

Merchandise