Mukund Joshi

The endgame is finally here.

Seeing the heroes train themselves, evolve personalities, grow closer (or farther), and eventually reach where they are after 11 years and 21 movies has been nothing less than inspiring.

As a developer, there are plenty of things that we can learn from their stories. Each hero has a unique skill that makes them an invaluable part of the team.

But in the universe of competitive programming, where Thanos is not the only one you fight, you cannot form or rely on a team to support you.

You need to have the powers of all the heroes and let the hero inside awaken.

But what are the superpowers that you, as a competitive programming hero, require to not just reach the top, but be one of the most sought after?

Here are 6 heroes who can be your biggest inspiration to be the last standing Avenger.

Iron Man

Real Name: Tony Stark

Powers: “Genius, Billionaire, Playboy, Philanthropist” | Tech Genius

I guess this one is obvious.

To be the best at competitive programming, you need to fine-tune your programming skills.

Tony, being one of the brightest minds on the planet is always looking to improve his armor, add more features, build new technologies, and be a stronger Iron Man.

In the world of competitive programming, where your armor is your code, practicing more and eventually improving your coding abilities is something that is of utmost importance.

Communities like StackOverflow and Codechef, online course providers such as Udemy and Coursera, and learning/practicing platforms like HackerEarth are some ways to perfect your skills and get your first infinity stone.

Captain America

Real Name: Steve Rogers

Powers: Strength, Stamina, Agility, Durability | Super Soldier

Captain America is a superhuman with heightened stamina, agility, and durability.

He also has a strong focus and superior planning skills, making him an effective fighter.

Likewise, when a developer is exposed to a competitive programming challenge that can last from an hour to even a month, you got to put the Cap hat on (pun intended!).

What I mean is, you should have the ability to understand the challenge (focus), create a plan (superior planning skills), and develop code as fast as possible (agility).

Once you have developed your tech skills, you can start with any of the following short-term challenges to take the journey forward.

• HackerEarth – HackerEarth Monthly Challenges like Easy and Circuits
• CodeChef – Programming challenges like Cook-off and Lunchtime

Hawkeye

Real Name: Clint Barton

Powers: Tactician and Combat expert – “Turn any object into a weapon”

Barton is arguably the strongest avenger on the team.

I know you don’t believe me, but hear me out.

He is the only Avenger with a family and has no actual superpowers.

But with his amazing skill-set of using almost anything as a weapon (especially his signature bow and arrow), he does not look out of place when he stands with chemically-created superhumans and gods.

Being highly motivated, not afraid of failing, and being proud of what you do are things that can add that extra edge to take your journey as a developer to the next level.

By understanding all the available tools and bringing them into practice by participating in various competitive challenges can help you define your tactics and hone your skills further.

Black Widow

Real Name: Natalia Alianovna Romanova

Powers: Master fighter, Agile, Weapon-expert, Master Hacker

Natasha Romanoff operates at peak human capabilities due to biotechnological enhancements in the Red Room.

With extensive physical and mental training, Nat is an expert martial artist, athlete, gymnast, and resistant to aging and diseases, while also possessing enhanced healing.

Nat is an expert tactician, an effective strategist, and an overall kickass.

And what is a competitive programming challenge, if not a game of skill, strategy, tactics, durability, agility, and the perfect execution of plans?

Participating in many short term coding challenges can help you understand your skill-set, hone it further, and also build durability and flexibility in your thinking styles to conquer any problem that comes your way.

HackerEarth’s Code Arena is one of the best platforms to compete in real-time 1v1 battles against other coders and experts around the world.

Hulk

Real Name: Bruce Banner

Powers: Intelligence, Superhuman strength, Durability, “Hulk Smash!”

Banner is one of the greatest scientific minds on the planet, with expertise in biology, chemistry, engineering, medicine, physiology, and nuclear physics.

His alter ego, Hulk, is a giant with superhuman strength, the ability to withstand immense force and injury while regenerating at a speed much quicker than a normal human.

In a competitive programming challenge, there are moments when all seems lost – the code might have bugs, there are other compilation errors, or you just need a break and let it all go.

In such cases, when your strategy fails, your durability has reached its limits, and your tactics aren’t working anymore, you want to just Hulk Smash!

Instead, I would suggest, let Banner win that battle, and use that genius mind to get through the situation and be the best coder out there.

Thor

Real Name: Thor Odinson

Powers: Strength, Flight, Controlling the power of thunder | God of Thunder

With all the aforementioned skills acquired, it would now be the best time to bring out Thor and be the god you are meant to be.

Thor, the mightiest Avenger, the God of Thunder can control the environment around him and strike bolts of lightning of enormous power and destructive capabilities.

Coming from a royal divine background, he has strong core values, a strong sense of loyalty, and incomparable strength.

In a competitive programming challenge, having a strong mindset, determination, and energy focused on developing the code will take your idea to the next level.

After all, a god has to be on a higher level.

Test yourself and see where you stand, or if you’re confident, conquer the biggest challenges out there. Here are some that you might be interested in.

• International Collgeiate Programming Contest – the oldest, largest, and most prestigious programming contest in the world.
• IEEEXtreme – an annual 24-hour long competition hosted by IEEE.
• Google Code Jam – Google’s longest running global coding competition.
• Facebook Hacker Cup – an annual global programming competition sponsored by Facebook.
• ICFP Programming Contest – an annual 3-day competition held by the International Conference on Functional Programming.
• Halite Challenge – an AI programming challenge, supported by organizations like Two Sigma, Cornell Tech, and Google.
• Microsoft Imagine Cup – Microsoft’s annual global competition.

Additionally, there are aggregator platforms like HackerEarth and TopCoder where you can find a list of several coding challenges happening around the world in various themes.

“Heroes are made by the path they choose, not the powers they are graced with.”

– Iron Man

Time to test your skills

As the curtains rise up on 2019, it’s time to look back at the amazing innovations that came out last year. We conducted over 400 hackathons with enterprises, universities, nonprofits, and governments in various fields, ranging from shaping the future of music to creating Fintech solutions.

The hackathon ideas of 2018 were judged based on the following 5 parameters:

• Creativity - Bringing the “wow” factor to solve a problem
• Usability - Usefulness of the product to solve a problem
• Technicality - The technology used to create the solution
• Scalability - Potential for future upgrades to improve upon the solution
• Business value - Solving a problem while aligning to the business goals

Without further ado, here are the best hacks of 2018 in no particular order.

Category - Versatility

Hackathon - NITI Aayog Pune Smart City Hackathon

Geography - India

Theme - Public Health

Team name - Anashwar Tech

What is the hack? - Water disinfection container cover plate

What did we love about it? - This hack solves a real-world problem - access to safe drinking water. We loved how this simple hack makes use of a cover plate, purifying water in the container that it covers and also cleans itself at the same time! This fully working prototype uses digital purification from UV-C light to purify both the water and the container at the click of a button.

Category - Beginner Hack

Hackathon - Talent Hackathon - Centro Fox

Geography - Mexico

Team name - hectorjafeth_1be2

What is the hack? - BENTOXX - A nanocomposite to build a sustainable industrial process

What did we love about it? - A service aimed at sectors such as the paper industry, textile industry, and farming, BENTOXX implements a nanocomposite that removes and collects contaminating particles with Arduino-based electronics and microcontrollers. We really liked how the system can be used to monitor pH, turbidity, and temperature of water to build sustainable industrial processes.

Category - Consumer ease

Hackathon - World Music Hackathon

Geography - North America, Europe, Asia

Team name - kailasmoon_7258

What is the hack? - Untethered

What did we love about it? - Everyone wants to express themselves through music, but it takes years of practice to master an instrument. The goal is to make it possible for anyone to create music -- and Untethered does exactly that. Its AI interprets users' gestures and enables them to intuitively control an instrument of their choice. The only requirements: a webcam and passion for music.

Category - Scalability

Hackathon - Blue Planet hackathon

Geography - Global

Team name - The Fraternity

What is the hack? - Efficient vertical axis water turbine

Theme - Pollution control

What did we love about it? - This new age water turbine hack helps generate electricity without the conventional dam model. The flexible design can be used for both small and large scale energy production by trapping energy from the surface of the water, irrespective of the flow of the water stream.

Category - Consumer ease

Hackathon - P&G Click Predict Innovate

Geography - India

Team name - Mellowain

What is the hack? - Mellowain: Queue problem in retail store

What did we love about it? - Remember the long checkout queues after you shop? What if there was no checkout anymore? What if you could just pick the items from the aisle, drop them into your cart and leave? Using motion capture and data augmentation, Mellowain detects the item, validates, and bills via the connected payment method.

Category - Security

Hackathon - Unisys Hackathon

Geography - India

Team name - Hypersign

What is the hack? - Hypersign - A cryptographic single sign-on solution

What did we love about it? - Hypersign is cryptography based SingleSignOn Solution that enables users to securely access applications without providing their access credentials. What caught our attention is this hack's ability to bring together cryptographic algorithms and equations in a mobile application thus totally eliminating the need for usernames and passwords. The application further enables a user to securely sign transactions in decentralized environments; the Hypersign SDK allows easy authentication to the Blockchain.

Category - Social Good

Hackathon - DeltaHacks IV

Geography - Canada

Team name - Aloud

What is the hack? - Aloud — granting seamless verbal narration of physical text materials.

What did we love about it? - 90% of the visually impaired have a partial visual impairment. Depending on the severity and cause, this leaves a wide range of ways to read, rather than Braille or waiting for the release of the audiobook. Aloud is a voice recognition tool that uses Amazon Alexa and StdLib to let users translate physical text material by taking a picture of the text.

Category - Women Empowerment

Hackathon - International Women’s hackathon - 2018

Geography - Global

Team name - Raikes Girls

What is the hack? - Rosie: Undermining Language Detector

Theme - Economic Freedom

What did we love about it? - This hack is a Chrome extension that detects undermining language and suggests more confident phrasing to help people represent themselves as the professionals they are. Named after Rosie the Riveter, an American symbol for female empowerment in the workplace, this is a great tool which can help women write confidently and have great business conversations. Check out their website here.

Category - Change Maker

Hackathon - Lumohacks 2018 - Canada’s Ultimate Health Hackathon

Geography - Canada

Team name - Compii

What is the hack? - Compassionate Intelligence

Theme - Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)/ Operational Stress Injury (OSI)

Technology used - AI, IoT, and Audibles

What did we love about it? - This hack tackles a major concern seen among military veterans and first responders - Operational Stress and Injury (OSI). Compii mobilizes the positive effects of social support. The social support intervenes at critical moments and empowers both individuals and their circle of trust to know when and how to act in times of emotional distress.

Category - Consumer ease

Hackathon - Cal Hacks 5.0

Geography - USA

Team name - JASK

What is the hack? - NavAR

What did we love about it? - While there are numerous navigation apps available for consumers, none of them work reliably and accurately indoors. The objective was to create an app that would highlight a path in the real world on your phone screen. This technology can be of great use to everyday citizens because it allows one to accurately navigate to a specific location in a building they have never been to before, such as a classroom in a campus. It is also useful in retail stores where the app can integrate with inventory databases to show customers the items they would want to purchase.

Want your ideas to turn into reality?
Check out the ongoing hackathons and find the one that suits you best.

Participate Now!

Want your ideas to turn into reality?
Check out the ongoing hackathons and find the one that suits you best.

Participate Now!

Compared to 2017, there was a 140% increase in the number of hackathons hosted on the HackerEarth Innovation Management Platform in 2018. We hosted more than 400 hackathons last year in 4 continents. Our community strengthened to 2.5 million by seeing the participation of over 100,000 innovators from over 100 countries across the globe.

High schools, universities, enterprises, nonprofits, and even governments hosted their own hackathons in 2018 to crowdsource over 14,000 ideas and 7,000 prototypes.

With a 30% increase in enterprise hackathons, Fintech solutions, SMB applications, automation, and smart logistics were some of the biggest challenges solved by enterprises. With over 3,000 prototypes built, these hackathons resulted in a 400% increase in ideation, 18% increase in meeting product deadlines, 17% increase in peer learning, and 88% of the workforce training through hackathons.

Nonprofits and government hackathons saw a 140% growth in 2018. Women empowerment, shaping the future of music, rural development, and environmental conservation were some of the biggest causes we, as a community, worked toward last year. We built over 150 solutions for women’s health & safety, 147 for poverty alleviation, 82 for providing better access to education, and 57 solutions for forest & wildlife conservation.

Similarly, in working with government organizations, we built over 650 solutions for public health, 243 for risk management, 103 for energy conservation, and 72 for creating efficient smart cities.

Universities across the globe hosted their own hackathons to promote innovation and programming culture while creating an efficient hiring platform at the same time. University hackathons saw a sharp rise of 300% in 2018.

In 2018, we worked with some of the biggest universities such as Yale, UC-Berkeley, IIT Madras, and IIT Roorkee. Governmental organizations like NITI Aayog; and nonprofits like the Nudge foundation also hosted their own innovation campaigns with us to crowdsource over 400 prototypes and make this world a better place.

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