MadHack 2021 – Sri Lanka’s First Ever Undergrad Mobile Application Development Hackathon

In March, the IEEE Student Branch of UCSC made the decision to undertake the task of creating a precedent. Mobile Application Development is no doubt a promising field in Sri Lanka considering the rapidly growing penetration rate of smartphones. With the mindset of giving undergraduates of the country from local and private institutions alike, a chance to be introduced into this sphere, the idea of a Mobile App Development Hackathon came into being. After many months of background preparation and tireless work put in by everyone involved, MadHack has completed over half of its planned events the highlight competition.
MadHack consists of two main sections. The first was a three-part workshop series designed to give all the participants a comprehensive introduction to the world of mobile app development. These sessions were conducted by industry experts on various cherry-picked concepts and relevant software applications that together create the foundation knowledge required when developing a mobile application. The second is a Hackathon taking part in three stages, namely the Idea Stage, Development Stage and Judging Stage.
In a nutshell, MadHack aims to bring about, or make more prevalent, an interest in Mobile App Development in the undergraduate population, while supplementing this interest with the knowledge needed for experimentation, and a hackathon to apply learnt concepts and foster friendly competition.
The Launch Event of MadHack was held on the 1st of June with Mr.Dhanika Perera attending the event as the guest speaker. The 500+ participant count went to show the successful momentum that had been built up through online engagement posts.
The first session of the Workshop Series quickly followed on the 13th of June, with Ms. Roshelle Perera as the guest speaker at the event. The session revolved around the fundamentals of Mobile App Development and the popular application, Android Studio. If the 600+ participant count and great feedback is anything to go by, it was successful in giving the participants an extensive first look at the world of Mobile App Development.
Two weeks later, on the 27th of June, the second workshop was held. Titled “Mobile Application Development with Flutter”, this session focused on Flutter, an uprising open-source UI Software Development toolkit developed by Google. It was conducted by Ms.Maneesha Erandi. Amidst a trial-by-electricity-cut that occurred mid-session affecting a large part of the island, the workshop setup went through a few emergency tweaks, but ultimately succeeded in proceeding smoothly thanks to the quick actions of the event managers.

In-between the 2nd and 3rd workshops, the MadHack 2021 Hackathon commenced. In the First Stage of the Hackathon, dubbed the Idea Stage, 1-5 member teams could register and submit a proposal on any desired topic as long as it addressed a problem faced by the current society. While the deadline was originally set for the 13th of July, after many requests from participating teams, it was extended to the 24th.
After the third and final workshop hosted by Mr. Maduwantha Wijendra on the 17th of July on “App Deployment and Monetization” concluded, the rules of the Hackathon were described in detail and the submission link for the proposals was opened.
Submissions for the Idea Stage of the MadHack Hackathon closed on the 24th of July with over 50 proposals. At the time of writing, the 10 finalists of the 1st round decided by the judging panel, and that is where this log ends. But here’s an idea of what’s coming up next.
In the second stage of the hackathon, namely the Development Stage, the Top Ten proposals from the previous round will be promoted and each team will be given a week to develop their submitted proposal.
After the week is up, the Judging Stage will begin. Each team will be allocated a 15-minute pitch followed by a 5-minute Q&A session in front of the judging panel. At the end, the first three places as well as the prize for the most innovative proposal will be awarded, and MadHack 2021 will reach its conclusion.
That is a wrap of everything so far. To keep up with MadHack, do check out the Official Website at madhack.ucscieee.com.

Written by – Anjali Rodrigo (1st year undergraduate in University of Colombo School of Computing)