Announcing H4H 2025!

A Hybrid Tech and Policy Hackathon

Online hate is on the rise, leading to real-world devastating effects on individuals and communities around the world. Hacking4Humanity is a tech and policy hackathon that offers students a new way to engage with real-world social problems that can be improved with novel technical and policy solutions. Any undergraduate and graduate students currently enrolled at a college or university in the Pittsburgh region can participate! Students compete in teams of 1-4 people in either the Policy track or the Tech track, with multiple cash prizes available in both tracks! Prizes will be announced closer to the event.

The hackathon takes place January 24- Feb 7, 2025 with a Zoom Kickoff on Friday, January 24. Final Policy and Tech presentations will be held at Duquesne University on Friday, February 7.

Winners will travel to the Governor's mansion in Harrisburg to present their work in front of high ranking officials in the Shapiro administration ... and maybe even meet the governor himself! 

View the full details of Hacking4Humanity 2025

Registration for Hacking4Humanity 2025 is now OPEN! 

REGISTER FOR HACKING4HUMANITY2025

Congrats to all the winners of  Hacking4Humanity 2024! 

The hackathon took place virtually from February 9-16, 2024, with all the teams competing in person on February 16 at Duquesne's Power Center. The four winning teams from the competition not only received prizes, but were able to go to Harrisburg to meet the First Lady of Pennsylvania, Lori Shapiro, and present their work in front of leaders of PA's statewide initiatives for digital equity and success. Watch the recording of the hackathon! And see the extensive coverage of the hackathon in local media from DU, CMU, PittWire and the Collaboratory Against Hate! 

 

Policy Track Grand Prize Winner: 
Myles Cramer - University of Pittsburgh - Protecting Youth from Hateful Conduct & Sexual Harassment Online

Policy Track Runner Up Prize Winner: 
Rachael Harris – Carnegie Mellon University - Tackling Hate Speech on “X” with Hate Speech

Tech Track Grand Prize Winner: 
Rory McCann, Chase Lahner, Ivan Puri, Holden Gent - University of Pittsburgh - HateBot

Tech Track Runner Up Prize Winner: 
Alex McElravy, Emily Brozeski, and Tessa Datte – Duquesne University - Tone Tagged Commenting

Tech Track Honorable Mention: 
Paul Doherty, Sam Houpt, and Ryan Bloch - University of Pittsburgh - HateBlocker

Hacking4Humanity 2024

Winners and judges

Winners and Judges from Hacking4Humanity 2024

All student participants from Hacking4Humanity 2024

All student participants from Hacking4Humanity 2024

Hackers with the First Lady of PA

Hackathon Winners and Organizers with First Lady Lori Shapiro

Networking and ice cream social

Networking and ice cream social during the Hackathon!

Panel discussion

A panel discussion with the judges before awards are announced!

Harmony Hacktavists

Team Harmony Hacktavists presenting their work

Bubhub presentation

Team Bubhub presenting their work!

Goobers presentation

Team Goobers presenting their work!

Students posing for Hackathon

Competitors showing off the t-shirt from this year!

Slattery presenting to PA Gov's staff

Dr. Slattery describing the hackathon to First Lady Lori Shapiro

Networking and ice cream social

Students enjoying a break during the hackathon!

Judges

Chad Heitzenrater, Senior Information Scientist, RAND
Jess Kuntz, Policy Director for Pitt Cyber, University of Pittsburgh  
Annie Newman, Director of Digital Strategy, Gov. Josh Shapiro
Ashique KhudaBukhsh, Assistant Professor at the Golisano College of Computing and
Information Sciences, Rochester Institute of Technology

Advisors

Clarke Bacharach, Independent Consultant
Jay Carroll, RAND
Florence Chee, Loyola University Chicago
Kevin Hanshaw, Google
Abi Hunter, Google
Morgan Gray, Duquesne University
Daniel Little, InvolveMINT
Rachael Miller Neilan, Duquesne University
Katherine Norton, Duquesne University
Ehi Nosakhare, Microsoft
Eric Schulte, Google
Elise Silva, University of Pittsburgh
Richard Zhang, Google

Organizers

Grefenstette Center for Ethics in Science, Technology, and Law
Pitt Cyber: The Institute for Cyber Law, Policy, and Security
The Center for Informed Democracy and Social-cybersecurity Research Group
The Collaboratory Against Hate Research Group
The Sara Fine Institute

Hacking4Humanity 2023

Download detailed information about the March 2023 Hacking4Humanity competition, including winners, judges, and sponsors.

FAQ

Hacking4Humanity is a tech and policy hackathon for undergraduate and graduate students, which offers students a new way to engage with real-world social problems that can be improved with novel technical and policy solutions. 
Any undergraduate and graduate student currently enrolled at a college or university in the greater Pittsburgh area can participate! No experience needed!
Students can compete in teams of 1-4 people can compete in either the tech track or the policy track, with multiple CASH prizes available in both tracks! Prizes will be announced closer to the event.
The hackathon has two tracks, tech solutions and policy solutions in which teams addressed challenges under the general topic of online hate. When students register, they pick one of the tracks to compete. Each track has its own set of requirements, guidelines, and judges. Tech teams build or plan new tech, like websites, apps, robots, plugins, etc. Policy teams create and write new policies, either improving on old ones, or coming up with new policy guidelines.
Hybrid means that all the day-to-day work of the hackathon is done separately, and all the teams only come together for the day of competition. There is a kickoff virtual event at the beginning of the hackathon and an in-person competition at the end, with food, door prizes, and lots of fun!
Sign up anyway! Good tech requires people of lots of skills to come together--graphic designers, communicators, writers, scientists, and more. We'll be providing lots of resources to help people develop great projects.