Taylor’s Agents of Tech tries to make a change through ImagineHack 2021

By Nisya Salsabila Putri

Taylor’s Agents of Tech is back again with their hackathon competition, ImagineHack 2021.

This hackathon is the first one to be held by the club since 2016, once again giving the chance for university students from different backgrounds to develop and showcase their skills in programming.

The main difference of this year’s hackathon, with the pandemic, and therefore lockdown happening, is the fact that the event is held virtually, through various online platforms such as Zoom, Discord, and WhatsApp.

“Discord was the official hacking area where participants would join their private channels to hack away for 48 hours,” said Jasper

(Source: Taylor’s Agents of Tech)

Moreover, with web development as the theme of this year’s event, United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, geofencing, and sustainable smart city were chosen as the topic of the competition.

Jasper Ang, the Project Manager of ImagineHack 2021, mentioned how the theme and topic of this year’s competition is also a bit different than usual.

He said, “We focus on the web solutions that can bring actual and impactful change to the world instead of innovative ideas that do not entirely contribute to society as a whole.”

ImagineHack 2021 was kicked off with a Pre-Hack Web Design Workshop given by the founding partner of Double Dot Pixel, Chen Chuen Lee on 10 June 2021.

The main event started the next day and lasted for 48-hours straight, whereby 76 registered participants were required to solve problems relating to the topics they had chosen.

Beh Jie Shen’s web solution pitching session on sustainable smart city

(Source: Taylor’s Agents of Tech)

After the pitching session on 14 June, the judging panel composed of professionals in the industry, announced Beh Jie Shen, a software engineering student at the University of Adelaide, as the grand champion of this year’s ImagineHack.

According to Jasper, it was the mix of his well-prepared presentation and ‘commercial-ready’ web solutions that led him to win the grand prize of RM1000.