Major League Hacking, officially abbreviated as MLH, is a company that operates a league for student hackathons.
Founded in 2013 by former developer evangelists Mike Swift (formerly of SendGrid) and Jonathan Gottfried (formerly of Twilio), Major League Hacking initially provided support for student-run university hackathons in North America.[1] In April 2014, Major League Hacking announced their first international expansion into United Kingdom and later Mexico and Europe in August 2014 and January 2015 respectively.[2][3][4]
In March 2016, it became a Certified B-Corporation.[5]
Season | Region | Start Date | End Date | Events | Countries | Season Winner |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Fall 2013 | North America | 6 September 2013 | 13 October 2013 | 5 | 1 | University of Maryland, College Park |
Spring 2014 | North America | 17 January 2014 | 27 July 2014 | 38 | 2 | N/A |
Fall 2014 | North America | 30 August 2014 | 6 December 2014 | 36 | 2 | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign |
Fall 2014 | Europe | 4 October 2014 | 7 December 2014 | 10 | 1 | University of Manchester |
Spring 2015 | North America | 10 January 2015 | 16 August 2015 | 60 | 3 | University of Waterloo |
Spring 2015 | Europe | 7 February 2015 | 28 June 2015 | 18 | 7 | King's College London |
Fall 2015 | North America | 7 August 2015 | 29 November 2015 | 52 | 3 | Rutgers University |
Fall 2015 | Europe | 2 October 2015 | 20 December 2015 | 14 | 6 | University of Manchester |
Spring 2016 | North America | 15 January 2016 | 29 May 2016 | 91 | 3 | University of Waterloo |
Spring 2016 | Europe | 30 January 2016 | 15 May 2016 | 25 | 8 | University of Edinburgh |
2017 | North America | 27 August 2016 | - | 163 | 3 | Georgia Institute of Technology[6][7] |
2017 | Europe | 7 October 2016 | - | 36 | 10 | University of Manchester |
2019 | North America | August 2018 | July 2019 | 185 | 3 | University of Toronto[8] |
Major League Hacking works with independently run university hackathons and provides them with various benefits such as the MLH Hardware Lab, Code of Conduct, eligibility for Season Rankings and Event Support.[9] At the end of every season, it formulates a winner of the League based on participation and prizes and organizes an awards ceremony at their school where the MLH Hacker Cup is provided to the school.
Typically, there would be two hackathon seasons per region per year: Fall and Spring. The Fall Season would be between late August and early December and The Spring Season would be between early January and mid May.[10] In August 2016, Major League Hacking announced it would instead have a single, year-long season beginning late August and ending in mid May to be more aligned with the academic year.