AI2’s Hackathon 2023

This year’s internal Hackathon encouraged collaboration, fast thinking — and fantastic snacks!

A group photo of post-Hackathon party attendees!

Every year, AI2 hosts an internal Hackathon for all employees to pitch their wildest ideas and join forces with cross-functional collaborators to create anything they can think of, so long as it serves our mission of AI for the common good.

In past years, Hackathon projects have led to hilarious digital versions of AI2 employees and dubious smart speaker apps, but they’ve also ended up in projects that went farther than the 2.5-day hacking spree. For example, SUPP.AI started as a Hackathon project that became one of the most widely accessed demos from AI2. Paper to HTML was another Hackathon project that is now helping to increase accessibility to scientific publication PDFs. AI2 hackers have also prototyped internal tools that can do things like help us ensure we are paying crowdworkers ethically, or accurately measure the true power consumption of our machine learning experiments.

A group including employees from AI2’s PRIOR team, Semantic Scholar marketing team, Research Visualization team, and legal team working together on a project.

AI2’s Hackathon begins with project pitches shared out in a team meeting, after which anyone is invited to sign up to help on a project up to a limit of six people. Collaborators can hack onsite or remotely, and are given two and a half days to produce a project, study, or other proof of concept to share with the rest of AI2 on presentation day.

The office team makes sure to cater breakfast, lunch, and even dinner for dedicated Hackathon participants.

Principal Engineer Sam Skjonsberg says, “It’s easy for us all to get locked into our world. We all have interesting work to do. It’s good to collaborate across boundaries, gain insights into what other people are doing, learn more about your colleagues, and build cultural connections that would otherwise be hard to form. Oftentimes, serendipity leads to good ideas!”

A *totally unposed* picture of a Hackathon team thinking hard about a problem.

Although all employees — both onsite and remote—are encouraged to join the Hackathon, one of the benefits of hosting this event has been to bring more people on-site, at least temporarily. In post-COVID times, many of us are spending more of our days working from home, so having a reason to visit one of AI2’s three offices leads to an exciting buzz both for Hackathon participants and those working on their normal jobs from the office.

“People get really stuck in their groove, and it's a good chance to break out and try something new,” says Senior Director of Engineering Michael Schmitz. “It’s nice to have people in the office! It brings people together in a hybrid world.”

Floor-to-ceiling whiteboards are one big bonus for those teams who are able to hack onsite.

Although working outside of your normal scope is encouraged during Hackathon, another benefit to the event is getting assistance and laser-focused time to hack something related to your normal course of work that might be put on the back-burner otherwise.

“It has been super great to work with folks on my literal team that I never get to see otherwise,” says Kate Panter, a Software Engineer for AI2. “It has allowed us to get a great jumpstart on important work that’s slated for later in the quarter. Now that we’re doing this proof-of-concept, we can have a better idea of where we’re going with the project and get it slated into our work schedules.”

Some teams hack together in a fully remote space, but still get “face time” via virtual meeting rooms.

Sometimes, Hackathon work can also lead participants to gain new skills by trying things they hadn’t had a chance to do before.

“I learned how to write Python extensions in C++ over the course of a few Hackathons,” says Principal Research Engineer Dirk Groeneveld. “I know a lot of people are using this opportunity to learn Rust right now. That will absolutely pay off later, even if their current Hackathon project fails.”

A Hackathon team meeting in the break room to discuss their work in the sunshine!

“I think I’m doing a better job not just going into my own little world,” says Senior Technical Artist Eli VanderBilt. “I’m trying to be more of an organizer, which is different from what I do in my day to day. It’s an experiment to see how much I’d want a management position.”

Across AI2’s three office locations, there are plenty of breakout rooms made available during Hackathon so teams can brainstorm and work together.

Ultimately, Hackathon can result in miraculous outcomes and long-lasting projects—or increased skillsets and new connections. This is a win for everyone, although AI2 ups the ante by having an awards ceremony at the end of each year, voted on by all AI2 employees! Hackers give final presentations of their work in a Friday meeting, and employees can vote in categories like “The Common Good Award,” and the “I Can’t Believe It Worked! Award.”

Hackers during lunch hour, enjoying one of the special meals brought in by the office team.

Finally, AI2’s Hackathon culminates in a celebratory rooftop party — and for 2023, this included a special “Welcome” for AI2’s new CEO, Ali Farhadi. Hackathon seems to fly by every year, but continues to produce exciting collaborations and renewed vigor for working at AI2.

Ali Farhadi, giving a closing speech at the Hackathon 2023 party!

“Hackathon gives everyone the opportunity to step outside their comfort zone, share their enthusiasm for passion projects, make connections with folks they don’t usually get to work with, and break up their routine to try something new,” says Senior Designer Aaron Sarnat. “Also, it’s a lot of fun!”

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