{"id":41989,"date":"2023-10-20T15:17:55","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:17:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/how-this-hackathon-for-students-is-helping-to-inspire-and-educate-the-next-generation-of-australian-entrepreneurs-and-founders-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:17:55","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:17:55","slug":"how-this-hackathon-for-students-is-helping-to-inspire-and-educate-the-next-generation-of-australian-entrepreneurs-and-founders-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/how-this-hackathon-for-students-is-helping-to-inspire-and-educate-the-next-generation-of-australian-entrepreneurs-and-founders-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"How this hackathon for students is helping to inspire and educate the next generation of Australian entrepreneurs and founders – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Generation Entrepreneur founders Victor Zhang and Alex Luo are planning to expand their Initiate 48 hackathons so more students can be empowered with the possibilities of entrepreneurship.<\/p>\n

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The pair put on a hackathon over the weekend which saw 150 students from schools in Sydney, Melbourne and New Zealand create 17 startups in 48 hours.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe excitement levels were exceptionally high when students realised they could actually change the world and make a difference,\u201d Zhang tells StartupSmart<\/i>.<\/p>\n

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Zhang and Luo broke out of institutional learning and started running classes to educate peers on entrepreneurship<\/a> before launching into the Initate 48 hackathon series when they were in Year 11.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe are a team of volunteer high school graduates and students,\u201d Zhang says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe\u2019ve learned a lot more by engaging in extracurricular activities in the real world than from a textbook.\u201d<\/p>\n

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On a mission to build a new generation of influencers, innovators and change-makers, Initiate 48 has now gained backing from the likes of Fishburners, Coder Factory and General Assembly.<\/p>\n

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Sydney startup accelerator BlueChilli hosted the recent Initiate 48 hackathon.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe atmosphere was by far one of the loudest and most exciting,\u201d Zhang says.<\/p>\n

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Students were able to create and present projects to a judging panel including BlueChilli CEO Sebastien Eckersley-Maslin, Sydney Seed Fund partner Garry Visontay and Foundation for Young Australians executive director Andrew Brough, who flew in from Melbourne for the event.<\/p>\n

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The hackathon resulted in a 14-year-old winning the top prize for GameAlly, a social network connecting gamers with similar interests.<\/p>\n

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\u201cHe experienced a problem and built a solution,\u201d Zhang says.<\/p>\n

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In addition to pitching for a $20,000 investment, Zhang says the winning student gets three months free co-working space at Fishburners, Coder Factory coding workshops and more.<\/p>\n

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Designed to leverage the fearless spirit and ambition of young people, Zhang says the \u201cbuzz\u201d of their hackathon leaves a lasting imprint on those who attend.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe\u2019ve had students send us thousand word essays on how Initiate 48 has changed their life,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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Initiate 48 is also working to increase the diversity of students that participate.<\/p>\n

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\u201c[Last weekend, it was] about 60% girls to 40% boys, I\u2019m not sure why but I think there is a change happening,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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Zhang and his team are meeting this week to discuss plans to run more Initiate 48 hackathons.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe want to empower more high school kids to live differently,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThey\u2019re less inhibited and not scared to have a bit of fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Follow<\/i> StartupSmart on<\/i> Facebook<\/i>,<\/i> Twitter<\/i>, and<\/i> LinkedIn<\/i>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Generation Entrepreneur founders Victor Zhang and Alex Luo are planning to expand their Initiate 48 hackathons so more students<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60587,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41989"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}