Yash Kumar’s Post

⚡ HackHayward 2.0 What started as an idea is now a movement. From year one to now, we’ve taken this to a completely different level. ⏱️ 24 hours of nonstop building, figuring things out, almost no sleep, and making something real. This past weekend at California State University - East Bay, we brought together hackers around one idea: Build With AI & an Entrepreneurial Eye 💡 Not just projects for a demo, but things that could actually become something bigger. ⏳ And the energy? Unreal. Seeing teams still building at 4 AM and then presenting demos just hours later. From starting HackHayward from scratch to now scaling it up, this journey pushed me in ways I didn’t expect. Building the team, bringing in sponsors, and making this real at a bigger scale meant everything. At HackHayward 1.0, we were just getting started with a small team. This year, it scaled into something much bigger. 💡 This is what we built: 🔥 200+ hackers 💰 $20,000+ raised 🤝 Sponsors including Google, Amazon, IBM, Perplexity, Cursor, ElevenLabs, Warp, Omi, DoorDash, CAHSI, Red Bull 🎤 What really elevated this weekend was the people in the room. The fireside chat with Gautam Krishnamurthi (General Partner, GreatPoint Ventures) brought a real perspective on what building in AI actually looks like today. And the pitch panel didn’t hold back. They pushed teams to think deeper, refine their ideas, and communicate what they were building more clearly: Mayur Pipaliya (Engineering Leader, Teleport), Ben Shahshahani (Chief AI Officer, Cleveland Clinic & Advisor, GreatPoint Ventures), Rahul Kuruvilla (President, Triune Infomatics), Nikole Hobson, MBA (Chief of Staff, Vataseason), Rajesh Gupta (Head of Agentic AI, Sakan AI), Priya Balgi (Senior BI Engineer, AWS) Really appreciated them taking the time to be part of this and share their perspective with everyone. ❤️ Core team: None of this comes together without the people behind it. Ujas, Nidhi, Shane, Chanpreet, Joshua, Sarmad, Janvi, Suptha, Pearl, Monisha A lot of what happened this weekend doesn’t get seen, but that’s where most of the work was. The late nights, constant problem solving, and everything behind the scenes that made this feel seamless. 👏 To Professor Lynne for your constant guidance, belief in this vision, and for being there through every challenge along the way. 🙌 To our judges and mentors, thank you for taking the time to be part of this and support the teams throughout the weekend. 🤝 To our sponsors, thank you for believing in what we’re building and helping make this entire experience possible. 🏆 To the teams that won, incredible work. And to everyone who didn’t, the fact that you showed up, built something from scratch, and pushed through the process matters just as much. That’s what hackathons are really about. We’re building something special here, and this is just the beginning. HackHayward 3.0 is going to be even bigger. ⚡ #HackHayward #Hackathon