Join us for a first-of-its-kind competition — 24 hours of the nation’s top students crafting daring solutions to real-world problems and creating groundbreaking products. You may be competing against each other, but together you’ll push the boundaries of innovation for one life-changing and unforgettable weekend.

What is Cal Innovates? We’re a collegiate competition that fuses the best aspects of hackathons, startup weekends, and case competitions. Students don’t just create novel technological developments, but also craft strategies to actually get their ideas into the “real” world. Cal Innovates doesn’t attract just engineers or just non-technical students - we encourage top students of all backgrounds to compete because we believe the best solutions come from the most diverse teams.

Hosted by the UC Berkeley Regents’ and Chancellor’s Scholars Association in partnership with the Pantas and Ting Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology, Cal Innovates competitors comprise the top tier of Berkeley students. ALL BERKELEY STUDENTS are eligible and invited to compete - regardless of major, background, or experience.

Event Schedule:

Day 1 - Saturday, April 14

8AM: Student Registration Opens

9AM: (Optional) Team Formation Session & Company Networking Event

10AM: Opening Ceremony and Special Keynote Speech

11AM: Hacking Opens

12PM: Oracle and Blockchain@Berkeley Present: Introduction to Blockchain & Applications in Tech

2PM: Womxn in Industry: Dessert Panel and Networking

3PM: Everybody Code Now! Presents: Intro to Front End Web Development

4PM: GoDaddy Presents: Progressive Web Apps & the Future of the Web

5PM: SkyDeck Presents: Secrets of Being A Student Founder

9PM: Venue Closes

1AM - 7AM: Suggested Code Freeze Hours

Day 2 - Sunday, April 15

8AM: Venue Reopens

9AM - 5PM: Open Hacking and Company Networking Time

5PM : Hacking Closes

5:15 PM : Judging Begins, Demo Hall Opens (Open to Public!)

6:30 PM : Top 5 Teams Announced

7:30 PM : Closing Keynote and Winners Announcement

Eligibility

Only registered UC Berkeley students may participate. All majors and ages are welcome. Teams may be between 1 to 4 students in size.

The sponsoring companies presenting prizes such as pitching and mentoring opportunities reserve the right to apply their own criteria and requirements for citizenship and immigration status if the team will be entering into a financial or formal business agreement with the sponsoring companies independent of Cal Innovates. However, Cal Innovates as a hackathon is open to, and welcomes, all students regardless of immigration and citizenship status.

Note: If your team is simultaneously competing in another competition at the same time with the exact same project, you are ineligible for any bonuses (code freeze or wildcard). You are also disqualified from winning first place, but are eligible for other prizes.

Requirements

Students must submit all submissions through Devpost. You must include both your Github/Bitbucket repository for your project's technical component, as well as your 'scaling proposal' in some form. This may come in whatever form you would like, whether it be a business plan document, pitch deck, etc (we highly recommend simply uploading the files into your Github repository). However, an explicit link must be included in your Devpost submission itself so that it is easily accessible to the judging team.

If you pitch using any slides, visual aids, or other items, those tools must also be included in your Devpost submission and must be completed by the 5pm hacking deadline.

ALL TEAM MEMBERS MUST HAVE THEIR NAME ON THE DEVPOST SUBMISSION TO BE COUNTED AS A MEMBER OF THE TEAM.

Hackathon Sponsors

Prizes

$1,770 in prizes

Grand Prize: Pitch or Mentoring Session with The Berkeley Skydeck Fund

1 winner

1st Place: Apple Watches

1 winner

2nd Place: $150 Amazon Gift Cards

1 winner

3rd Place: Google Home Mini

1 winner

How to enter

You MUST be a registered UC Berkeley Student to participate. All majors and ages are welcome!

Judges

Caroline Winnett
Executive Director of The Berkeley Skydeck Fund

Brian Bernert
HVF Labs

Kira Noodleman
Investor at Bee Partners

Robert Chen
Senior Software Engineer at GoDaddy

Andrea Lo
Product Manager at Harbor

Shriya Nevatia
UX Engineer at Glidr

Romi Phadte
Software Engineer at DeepScale

Diana Lee
Software Engineer at GoDaddy

Judging Criteria

Ambition of Problem (10 pts)
Scale of problem being explored. Top projects will : attack a frequently overlooked/ignored problem from an entirely new angle and provide a well-thought out solution.
Technical Complexity and Innovation (10 pts)
Scale and novelty of the technology being used, and/or the architectural approach taken. Top projects will have: technology or design that breaks new ground, especially in the related industry(ies) at large.
Feasibility (10 pts)
Top projects will have: content that is clearly targeted at the needs of the specific audience, with extremely clear, compelling, and believable customer benefits and market opportunity. Idea is viable with a high probability of success.
Presentation (10 pts)
Top projects will: capture & maintain audience attention/interest, provide relevant facts, examples, analogies, stories, etc., use nonverbal techniques to make the presentation more compelling, implement engaging visuals, stay within the time limit
BONUS: Code Freeze (+5 bonus points)
Teams that successfully complete a 6-hour code freeze will receive 5 bonus points onto their overall score.
BONUS: Judge's Wildcard (+20 bonus points maximum)
Each judge will receive 5 'wildcard' points to award to 1 team during demo round judging. There is no max to the number of wildcards a team may receive, but the max number of bonus points available is ~20 points (4 judges * 5 wildcard points)