HackNY

HackNY

HackNY is a nonprofit organization that connects students with the New York City startup and technology communities through hackathons, internship programs, and educational events. Founded in 2010 by technologists and entrepreneurs from the New York startup scene, the group has sought to bridge students from universities and colleges with companies, investors, and civic technology initiatives across Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and beyond. Its activities intersect with major technology firms, venture capital firms, academic institutions, and civic projects that shaped the early 2010s startup ecosystem in the United States.

History

HackNY emerged during a period of rapid growth in the New York City technology sector, influenced by the presence of firms such as Foursquare, Yelp, Twitter, Facebook, and Google's New York offices. Its founders—associates of organizations like New York University, Columbia University, and Y Combinator alumni networks—designed the organization to address talent pipelines and experiential learning that were underdeveloped at the time compared with Silicon Valley. Early initiatives drew support from community figures including Brad Feld-affiliated accelerators, local incubators, and angel investors active in the Lower Manhattan and DUMBO startup corridors. Over successive years HackNY expanded programming in response to trends exemplified by platforms such as GitHub, Heroku, Stripe, and Twilio, and by academic-industry collaborations involving institutions like Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni in New York and engineering departments at Columbia University.

Programs and Events

HackNY's core activities include multi-day hackathons, a summer internship fellowship, speaker series, and career-oriented workshops. The hackathon events bring together students from institutions such as Princeton University, Cornell University, Carnegie Mellon University, Harvard University, Yale University, Rutgers University, City College of New York, and Cooper Union to build prototypes using APIs and services from partners like Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure, Facebook Platform, Stripe API, and Plaid. Judges and mentors have frequently included engineers and product managers from companies including Dropbox, Airbnb, Etsy, Spotify, Squarespace, Salesforce, IBM Watson, and LinkedIn. The fellowship program places selected students into internship roles at startups, matching candidates with employers such as Kickstarter, Groupon, Zocdoc, Disablement? (note: placeholder), and smaller seed-stage ventures backed by firms like Union Square Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, and First Round Capital. Public-facing talks have featured speakers associated with TechCrunch, The New York Times technology desk, and civic initiatives tied to Data.gov style transparency projects.

Organization and Leadership

The organization was initiated by founders from academic and industry intersections, including technologists and data scientists with ties to New York University and the New York Academy of Sciences. Leadership over time has included directors, program managers, and volunteers drawn from alumni of accelerators like Techstars and Dreamit Ventures, as well as engineers who previously worked at Mozilla Foundation, Canonical, and research labs at IBM Research. Governance has involved advisory boards populated by entrepreneurs who founded startups such as TouchType and executives from firms like Bloomberg L.P. and The New York Times Company. Operational teams coordinate logistics with venues in neighborhoods tied to the startup ecosystem such as SoHo and Chelsea, and liaise with university career centers at Columbia Teachers College and engineering faculties at NYU Tandon School of Engineering.

Impact and Alumni

Alumni from HackNY-affiliated programs have gone on to roles at prominent technology companies, founded startups, and contributed to open-source projects. Former participants are known to have joined companies including Google, Facebook, Amazon, Palantir Technologies, Stripe, and Uber, and to have launched ventures that later received funding from firms such as Sequoia Capital and Benchmark. In civic technology and data journalism, alumni have collaborated with organizations like ProPublica, The Marshall Project, OpenPlans, and Sunlight Foundation on projects leveraging public datasets. The program's career pipelines have been cited in media coverage alongside pieces about the rise of the New York tech ecosystem, with alumni contributing to ecosystems studied by researchers at institutions such as Columbia Business School and NYU Stern School of Business.

Partnerships and Sponsors

HackNY has partnered with corporate technology providers, venture capital firms, academic institutions, and media outlets. Sponsors and partners have included cloud and platform providers such as Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft, and Heroku; venture capital firms like Union Square Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, and First Round Capital; universities including Columbia University and New York University; and media organizations such as TechCrunch and The New York Times. Civic partners have included municipal initiatives and nonprofits that overlap with organizations like Code for America-affiliated brigades and open-data advocates such as NYC Open Data initiatives. Event venues and co-sponsors have ranged from coworking operators like WeWork (historically) to incubators affiliated with NYCEDC-linked programs.

Category:Organizations based in New York City