-- Sacramento Kings Join SacHacks and Local Businesses to Give Students Access to Data, Tools and Professionals to Solve Industry-Specific Challenges --
-- Sponsors include IBM, CITRUS and the Banatao Institute, CeDAR, CITRIS, GitHub, Sketch, and UC Davis College of Engineering, with Additional Partners Announced in Coming Days --
On February 22-23, undergraduate, graduate and industry professionals will gather at Allegiant Innovation Center for the Second Annual SacHacks – Sacramento’s major intercollegiate, 24-hour coding and competitive hackathon.
Using the same format as last year, assembled teams will use data provided by local businesses to develop solutions and ideas and will hear from industry professionals – including a keynote address from tech entrepreneur and investor Sonny Mayugba. Workshops available to attendees will be led by CITRIS, CeDAR and IBM.
“Last year, we joined with SacHacks and Major League Hacking to host the very first intercollegiate event in Sacramento that challenged students to create data-driven solutions to modern-day issues seen throughout our community and in the business world,” said Sacramento Kings President of Business Operations John Rinehart. “We are excited to bring back this event to continue to encourage and support the next generation of coders and hackers to create solutions to industry-specific challenges.”
“We are proud at SacHacks to bring together the bright minds of the Sacramento region to create projects that solve real problems in the world,” said SacHacks Executive Director Derek Lee. “Thanks to the Sacramento Kings, our sponsors, and our team, we have created an amazing event for the community. We encourage everyone of all skill levels to join us as we embark into the unknown and create, build, launch tech ideas that impact the community.”
Participants will be given industry-specific tracks to develop solutions to tough problems in a timely manner. The Kings, CITRIS, CeDAR and IBM will all provide specific data for the students to use in developing their solutions. Tracks will include:
The hackathon will conclude with groups presenting their solutions to a panel of judges. Judges will include representatives from the Kings, SacHacks, UC Davis and other local professionals and educators. Together, the judges will choose one winner from each track, with the winners each receiving Kings merchandise and tickets to the Kings upcoming Tech Night on Thursday, March 26, where they will be recognized in-game for their SacHacks victory.
Last year’s winners of the Sacramento Kings business tracks were:
Esports Track – Michael Li, Michelle Zhao and Andreas Godderis who used data from the NBA 2K League to find the most advantageous mixture of archetypes in the game, while compiling insightful information.
Fan Experience – Amber Tang, Oscar Qiu and Eric Wong who created an augmented reality basketball game to encourage fan engagement.
Winning the top honor of the event as Major League Hacking’s “Best Overall Hack” were Mylinh Pham, Scott Sanchez, Ryan Shu and Darrel Muonekwu, who created an in-app voting platform to increase engagement during Kings games. They also developed a website that would allow car owners to lend and rent their vehicles to others.
Named the Most Innovative Company in Sports by Fast Company, the Kings are dedicated to using their NBA platform to promote innovation and technology. Recently, the Kings launched the league’s first live blockchain-powered auction platform for authentic memorabilia with ConsenSys and Treum, the first physical crypto-collectible in professional sports and the NBA’s first blockchain-powered reward program for in-app gaming. In 2014, the Kings became the first NBA team to accept Bitcoin as payment in the arena. In 2018, the Kings became the first professional sports team in the world to mine cryptocurrency and announced a charitable program, MiningForGood, that donates those funds to workforce development and training efforts in the community. Last year, the Kings also debuted the NBA’s first dedicated space for a free-to-play, in-arena predictive gaming experience.
To view a full schedule of the hackathon, visit SacHacks.io.