Hacker Tour 2013 kicks off at Tech’s campus

Photo Courtesy of Molly Turner, Hacker Tour 2013

From last Sunday to the end of this week’s career fair, Hacker Tour by Ready Force made its first stop to the Tech campus in order to meet Tech hackers, coders and makers and expose them to companies offering internships and career opportunities.

In addition, Hacker Tour invited Tech students to participate in different challenges for prizes and a ranking among some of the nation’s best computer science and engineering students.

“Hacker Tour is ten week bus tour to the top 35 computer science and engineering schools in the country our goal is to essentially identify computer science and engineering students and connect them with incredible opportunities with multiple tech companies,” said marketing program manager Molly Turner.

While on campus, Hacker Tour introduced students to their network of companies through their table and website. In addition, they were able to witness the computer science skills of some Tech students by allowing them to participate in two different challenges.

“One is called the campus coder which is run by one of our sponsors called Quixey which is actually a search engine for apps,” Turner said. “They have created something called the crazy challenge, a quick 60 second bug fix, and the fastest student who can fix the bug gets a prize.”

For students who did not visit Hacker Tour while on campus, the tour will be hosting another competition that students can enter before the end of Hacker Tour’s ten week period.

“The next [event] is called Hacker Madness where any student can submit a video demo of their best software and hardware hack,” Turner said. “The top submission from each school will be placed in a larger bracket among other schools, and at the end of the tour, we’re going to have the top students compete in an online competition.”

While the tour focuses on challenging computer science and engineering students and showcasing students’ skills across the nation, Hacker Tour under Ready Force wishes to stand by its goal as a network for students interested in working or interning under their sponsors and other technology companies.

“We have some really awesome startup companies on our site that are our sponsors, and so those companies specifically are the ones that we are promoting and trying to get students excited about,” Turner said. “Some are really tiny and do not have the budget or resources to come and travel all the way to Atlanta or San Francisco, so it’s about getting all of those different exposures.”

Many students at Tech appreciate the outside effort to connect undergrads with internship opportunities and give a peak into the careers that are available in the workplace.

“I think it’s neat that Tech invites these kind of people to show us what’s out there,” said Andrew Sanders, a freshman CS major. “I guess it’s pretty important to be aware of different intern and co-op opportunities as an undergraduate, so I’m glad to be studying here.”

“We want students to know that all of these opportunities are available. There are many jobs in [technology],” Turner said.

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