Blog tag: hackathon

Three words sparked an AI breakthrough in restaurant operations: “Hair. On. Fire.”
That’s how an EcoLab® executive described decision‑making for quick‑service restaurant managers during peak rush—raw instinct, pure adrenaline, with seconds ticking away. That moment sparked a Microsoft Garage Hackathon project that became RushReady™, turning frontline kitchen data into real‑time guidance that helps managers boost sales per hour, speed of service, and profit margin. What started as a hackathon idea now helps....

Coding for the cosmos
Microsoft, NASA, and students from two HBCUs in the Reston/DC area have completed the maiden mission of a new Microsoft/NASA partnership, STEM Educational Project: AI looking for new Earths. Using methodology developed by The Microsoft Garage over years of running hackathons, in just one month – and while completing their final exams – the student hackers learned and deployed several....

Forest Guard: Microsoft Student Hackathon winners create rapid-response deforestation sensor
The 2021 Microsoft Student Hackathon – hosted by The Microsoft Garage and run concurrently with the Microsoft Global Hackathon this year – offered Microsoft summer intern 2021 alumni and their friends a chance to hack real-world challenges in a structured environment, complete with coaching and access to Microsoft technologies to help them realize their ideas. Students from 22 countries came....

A new digital assistant for your browser with Stay Current, a Microsoft Garage project
We view the browser as a “window to the world”. As we browse online, we have access to all kinds of resources and information. There are some tasks we do every day that are monotonous and can very much be automated. With Stay Current, our mission is to transfer the power to automate to the people with relatively little effort—users....

Making Smart Cities: The power of hackathons brings together Rogers, UBC students, City of Kelowna, and Microsoft to advance 5G smart city applications
The convergence of industry, public service, enterprise, and academia occurred in January 2020 when Rogers reached out to Microsoft to discuss a potential collaboration with UBC that would showcase the capability of 5G networks when paired with Azure Edge Compute technology. The plan was to get a group of the most creative computer science and electrical engineering students from UBC....

Hackathon project mirrors courage, accelerates progress in the Microsoft Garage Residency
The project team of epilepsy data tracking app “MirrorHR” finds success and support in a Residency with The Garage. For seven years, Microsoft’s Hackathon has sparked new opportunities and given employees the creative space to champion innovative solutions and ideas that can make a difference and solve critical problems. MirrorHR is here to accomplish just that, to achieve a vast....

Garage Externs from MIT collaborate with The Met to spark global connections to art using AI
To help celebrate the second anniversary of The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Open Access Program, The Met teamed up with Microsoft engineers and MIT students and faculty to imagine new ways in which their encyclopedic collection could be explored by global audiences. The collaboration started with a 2-day hackathon in December 2018 at The Garage in Microsoft’s New England Research....

Microsoft New England teams up with customers to create high-impact product features
Microsoft Garage has been a force in affecting positive change within the company, practicing new ways of thinking and spreading a growth mindset culture to employees as well as partners outside the company. Microsoft’s global Hackathon is a key player in CEO Satya Nadella’s culture change priorities driving innovations that empower customers to achieve more. The Garage at NERD, located....

Introducing the Grand Prize Winner of Hackathon 2018, a project team exploring new paradigms in advertising
Wei Liu, senior software engineer for Bing Ads in Suzhou and one of the 15 members of the winning team, believes that for success, “interest and passion are your best friends.” Previous winners of Microsoft’s annual Hackathon have accomplished great success, and the future is bright for the 2018 winners. Based in China, Liu and his teammates will have the....

Watch For, Hackathon 2017 winner, powers Mixer’s massively successful HypeZone
HypeZone, released in December 2017, rapidly gained millions of new users to livestream community Mixer. HypeZone’s secret weapon? The 2017 Hackathon Grand Prize Winner, Watch For, a Microsoft Garage project. Last month, Microsoft’s fifth annual One Week Hackathon wrapped up with astounding numbers. This year, during the largest private hackathon on the planet, over 23,000 employees registered to hack, and....

This is what happens when interesting ideas, passion for technology, and experimental engineers converge
Each year, we host dozens of customer and partners in the Microsoft Garage. As we walk visitors through our community hub, makerspace, and most recently, our new Mixed Reality room, we often discuss everything from fostering innovation to designing spaces where people want to come together to collaborate. Across tech, banking, education, healthcare, and everything in between, one topic that....

How to use hacking culture to find your mojo
Mike McCarter was ready to leave the company. He had goals and dreams, and his everyday work wasn’t getting him there. He looked to his life-long affinity of tinkering and hacking on physical objects and found new ways to bring these skills to the workplace. His journey from reinventing his team culture to applying his skills to making a difference....