On September 17th, over 250 of the most talented developers, designers, and creators in the nation were brought to Dallas to compete in an epic hack-off. WorldLink was a proud sponsor of this competitive college hackathon, Pinnacle 2021.
Dallas, Sept. 27, 2021 -- WorldLink was a proud sponsor of one of the most competitive college hackathons, Pinnacle 2021. This annual event brought together 250 of the world’s brightest hackers in Dallas to innovate and find unique solutions to the most challenging business problems. Pinnacle invited a winning team from each of the world’s largest 50 collegiate hackathons and 5 high school hackathons to compete in an epic hack-off. Each participant received invitations throughout the Pinnacle 2020-2021 qualifying hackathon season.
WorldLink’s challenge focused on building recommendation algorithms based on either transactional data from B2C or any other dataset of their choosing. The teams were free to be creative with their efforts and were encouraged to not function just within the boundaries of this challenge.
Fourteen teams accepted WorldLink’s challenge and provided fourteen unique solutions. This included everything from recommendation engines for how to distribute charitable donations, to creating a friending mechanism on Spotify based on music that users listen to. The winner of the WorldLink prize was a recommendation engine that would show how to watch movies based on a host of variables beyond simple movie genres and actors. It was obvious that the team had worked tirelessly on the effort in the two days they were together. Additionally, this team pulled together a detailed layout of their effort in creating the output.
The jury was extremely impressed by the level of maturity and innovation from participants, “we were thoroughly impressed by what these hackers were able to pull together in two days. The talent within this team ranged from 11th graders to folks with master’s in computer science. The future of technology truly does look bright, and I would not be surprised if the next Elon Musk, Anne Wojcicki or Jeff Bezos was among these 250 or so hackers”.
This event was a great opportunity for all teams to find solutions to significant business problems in today’s world that can only be addressed with collaboration and the use of technology.
