Registration Now Open for USM Hackathon Event

Registration is now open for iD8, The University of Southern Mississippi's inaugural Hackathon, Friday and Saturday, April 7-8 in Hattiesburg. The competition is open to teams of four African-American high school girls. Teams will learn to code, build, and present a mobile app. No coding experience is necessary.

“The iD8 Hackathon provides unique opportunities for participating students to interact with USM faculty engaged in a variety of research that involves coding as a key component, includes bioinformatics, mobile computing, app development, gaming, big data and analytics, computer engineering, 3-D printing and prototyping, networking, and AI (artificial intelligence),” said Dr. Andrew H. Sung, professor and director of the School of Computing,

A stellar panel of African-American women in STEM will share success stories and challenges along their path Friday evening including Angelica McKinley from Digital Design at the New York Times, Dr. Mary Moore aviation engineer at GE and founder of STEM Discoveries, Yetunde Adewunmi Southern Miss doctoral candidate in biological sciences, and Deidra Minor, Director of Applied Technology at USM. Cherita Brent of MPB Everyday Tech will emcee the two-day event.

"We love bringing K-12 scholars to campus to help feed their dreams about what is possible. In the case of coding, there is a critical shortage of women, and African-American women in particular,” said Julie Cwikla, Director of Creativity and Innovation in STEM at USM. “iD8 serves as an invitation for young women to taste the possibilities and learn about high tech careers from women who are thriving in these fields." 

For more information, or to register visit: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/id-8-hackathon-tickets-32665100194