Volunteering at George Hacks

This event happened around ~1.5 months ago and I’m only blogging about it now. I decided to become a mentor at George Hacks, which is a student-led innovation hackathon at George Washington University (GWU). I saw an event notice saying they were looking for mentors on a public Slack channel. I felt like I could give good advice to some of the student teams and help them brainstorm solutions. I did it with the intention of making a difference and the mindset to help and to serve. I wanted to represent the organizers of the hackathon with honor and integrity most of all! I had no idea what to expect when I signed up as a mentor, but I’m very glad that I did it looking back.

The hackathon was a two day event, Saturday (3/1/25) and Sunday (3/2/25) back-to-back. I’ll describe both days starting with Saturday. I woke up early on Saturday and got to the GWU Science and Engineering Hall a little late, around the time for lunch. The hackathon was just getting into the swing of things, but most of the teams had already formed. The lunch was Panera Bread, and the turkey sandwich was not bad! As a mentor, I struck up a conversation with some of the other mentors and it was a good networking opportunity to learn from them. I then talked with some of the teams and brainstormed with them on good ideas, reminding them the importance of the rubric and developing a good business model for the final presentation. Honestly, most of the teams seemed like they didn’t need mentorship on Saturday; I walked around and most of the teams were heads down and working hard already. Therefore, I decided to attend some of the workshops and talks instead. They were ok and in the end, I went home Saturday after being disappointed in myself that I didn’t really make a difference there as a mentor.

I told myself that I would change this on Sunday! Sunday I got to the hackathon on time and I promised myself that I would make a difference that day. There were two rounds of pitching for each team, one round in front of a panel of judges and a second round that was a more formal pitch presentation. Before the first round of pitching, I went around to as many teams as I could possibly find and gave the students confidence. I told the students that when it comes to any kind of presentation, the most important thing to remember is confidence! That’s the only word they needed to remember and they should not be afraid to project confidence! I don’t know if what I said helped, but all of the groups seemed receptive and happy with my pep talks. I specifically mentored two groups who kept coming back asking more questions, and the more they asked, the more answers I gave them. I stayed for the whole day and went around being as helpful as I could possibly be. I had to leave when the judging had not finished by ~6:00 PM EST. Right before I was about to leave, the organizers of George Hacks told me I did a great job and they got good feedback from the teams on my mentorship. I was very proud of that.

In the end, two of the teams I helped ended up winning a prize! I was VERY happy about that. I think the lesson is: always put good energy into the world! It’s going to come back to you in auspicious ways and enrich your life in unexpected ways. After George Hacks, the organizers sent out this wonderful certificate. Well done to the George Hacks organizers and I thank them for giving me this opportunity to serve!