Computer Systems Technology - Networking and Computer Programming students from St. Clair College got their hack on at the recent Win Hacks 2025 competition, hosted at the University of Windsor.
The event, founded in 2019, "has been a beacon of collaboration, creativity, and technological advancement," according to the Win Hacks webpage. Hackathons are often described as "invention marathons" where participants come up with an idea and implement it in a very short timeframe.
About 150 students took part, including seven students from St. Clair College, where groups of students teamed up to bring project ideas to life within a 36-hour window in February.
Some of the project ideas ranged from an app that transforms documents and finances into structured data, a food app designed to make cooking less daunting by breaking recipes down into individual steps, and a task management system which adapts to a users' schedule, streamline workflows with an intuitive interface and adapt smart scheduling.
St. Clair students Riddhi Meet Savsani, Sakshi Patel, Daria Deriagina, and Rohan Madhusudan teamed up to build a Daily Challenge' app, where you can challenge yourself and others to complete tasks ranging from going for a run to meditating.
"Since we have a strong foundation in programming, it was great to learn about trending technologies like Flask and React. The workshops gave us a new direction to explore in our learning journey," said Riddhi Meet Savsani. "Overall, it was a great experience, and I enjoyed connecting with like-minded people."
Aside from friendly competition, the weekend featured workshops, mentorship and networking sessions with industry leaders.
"We had the opportunity to meet other IT industry professionals. Being able to apply our skills from the classroom to the real world helped us to identify gaps in our knowledge and be more prepared for next year," said Rohan Madhusudan.
