Code For Good is an annual Hackathon conducted by JP Morgan Chase for students in their second and third years of Engineering. It is a hackathon aimed at providing technology-based solutions to real-world problems faced by NGO’s, NPO’s etc.
This was an on-campus opportunity, I study at RV College of Engineering, Bangalore. Find out more at: https://careers.jpmorgan.com/us/en/students/programs/code-for-good?search=&tags=location__AsiaPacific__India
The Code For Good hackathon is one of JP Morgan’s hiring events as well, 2-month summer internships for 2nd-year students, 6-month internship + FTE for 3rd-year students. (This is for the next year, i.e I took part in the hackathon in 2021, and the internship opportunity is for summer 2022)
TL;DR watch this 👇
Timeline
The hackathon was a 4-day event conducted between 8th-12th July. Prior to this, there were 2 rounds of shortlisting. In the month of March, a coding test was conducted on Hackerrank. The level of the questions was LeetCode easy-medium. The next round was a video interview on HireVue, where 2 questions similar to the ones asked in HR rounds were asked. A preparation time of 4–5 minutes post which we had 2 attempts to record the answer. The coding test and video interview were compulsory, after which shortlisting was done.
On April 30th, I received a mail stating that I have been selected to take part in the Code For Good Hackathon
Around 8000 students appeared for the selection process and 650 students were selected to take part in the grand event.
Hackathon
The hackathon was scheduled to take place on 8th July — 12th July 2021. We were divided into teams of 6 -7 members. Surprisingly, the team's list was sent out a week earlier on 2nd July 2021, the next minute I tried contacting my team via email, Linkedin, and whatnot. We started discussing the tech stack we were all comfortable with and how we would work during the hackathon. On 5th July 2021, we received an email stating that teams have been reshuffled, well that meant starting from ground zero and quickly adapt to the change, and so we did. I interacted with my new team and decided what we would follow during the hackathon hours.
On 8th and 9th July 2021, we had a few technical sessions and fireside chats telling us a little more about the nature of the hackathon, and as students what is expected out of us.
10th July 2021 was the big day, it marked the start of the hackathon, at 7:00 AM the problem statements were released, after an hour of discussion with the team and our mentors, (Each team was assigned 2–3 mentors, who were employees at JPMC) we decided the order of our preferences, there were a total of 5 problem statements. We finally received the problem statement from the Indian Housing Federation.
To find out more about this NGO, visit: https://www.ihf.in/
The NGO provides low-cost and sustainable housing solutions to those in need. Our problem statement revolved around increasing engagement between the various stakeholders involved in this process by means of an application/portal.
For the next 24 hours, we brainstormed and built a prototype. We built a web portal based on the MERN stack and a Flutter-based mobile application. The first was a submission that had to be made on the portal, which included a description of our solution and the idea behind our solution. The next was the technical judging round, following which the shortlisted teams, the top 2 teams would progress to the final judging round. My team did progress to the final judging round.
The Final Show
On 11th July 2021, at 3:15 PM, we presented our solution to the final panel of judges, we were very excited and nervous at the time. The question and answer session following the presentation was very thought-provoking.
The results were scheduled to be announced in the next 30 mins. I have never been as nervous and anxious ever, and finally, it was time. TEAM 14 (My team) WERE ANNOUNCED WINNERS for our problem statement. It was an unbelievable feeling, that moment was so surreal!
The Internship Offer
As I had mentioned earlier, the hackathon is a hiring event as well, your mentors evaluate your performance based on various criteria in the 24 hour period, so make sure to display the best of your abilities. Technical skills and interpersonal skills are equally important.
On July 31st, I received an email stating I was selected for the 2-month internship!
General Advice
- For Round 1, record the demo of the prototype, cover all the functionality and reason behind including a particular feature
2. Put forth your best ideas, work in a collaborative manner and show your leadership skills. It’s completely okay if something doesn’t work or gets messed up, maintain your composure
3. My team used Zoom to record the video submission, that worked well enough for us but feel free to choose anything else
4. Throughout the event be very thoughtful, retain originality, and clearly state what you have done and what is the future scope of the project
You can reach out to me at https://linkedin.com/in/namyalg for further queries!