$20,000 in Cash Prizes Up for Grabs at Kansas City’s Largest App Building Challenge

Hack Midwest, KC’s largest app building competition, will bring together more than 300 software engineers in the summer of 2023 to compete for $20,000 in cash, including a $10,000 grand prize from H&R Block. 

Participants will bring their ideas to life at the fast-paced 24– hour hackathon, happening Sept. 23-24 at Lightwell in downtown Kansas City. 

“Amazing things can happen when you bring hundreds of great minds together. We can’t wait to see what people build this year,” says Hack Midwest founder Mike Gelphman. “Teams of software engineers from more than 50 of the region’s top companies will showcase their skills by building innovative ideas that solve business problems across industries, including fintech, health care, manufacturing, transportation and more.   

Hack Midwest is also open to Computer Science students in their junior or senior year, as well as those in CS graduate and PhD programs. Engineering students from more than 20 top universities will be in attendance, including schools as far away as Texas Tech University and University of Utah. 

“I think a lot of people don’t fully understand what they’re capable of and what they can build in just 24 hours,” Gelphman says. “A lot of people surprise themselves in terms of what they’re able to achieve, and I think that really changes how they think. That’s really our purpose is to turn that switch of entrepreneurship on and get the idea machine flowing.”

Immediately following the hackathon, each team will have three minutes to share and demo what they’ve built over the past 24 hours. The judges will review the apps, ranking them on multiple criteria including creativity, completeness and usefulness. In addition to the $10,000 grand prize, there will be several other prizes including a $5,000 prize for the “Best Web3” app and two $2,500 prizes. 

Apply today and join hundreds of passionate developers to build amazing things in 24 hours and win thousands in prizes!