HackOn With Amazon — My Experience
HackOn with Amazon is a two-month-long hackathon conducted by Amazon. It started on the 2nd of April 2021 and was concluded on the 11th of June. I was fortunate enough to be in a team that secured a position in the top 10 among 700+ teams that had participated. In this article, I will try to present my experience in as much detail as possible and also write about the PPI opportunity that the top 10 team members have received.
The first phase of the hackathon was Idea submission, where registered teams were supposed to submit a presentation about their project and its relevance with the given themes. The themes for the year 2021 were:
- Shopping Experience (Offline and Online)
- Technology and Covid-19
- AI and Robotics
We were given a duration of around 28 days (from 2nd April to 30th April) to submit our ideas, and multiple idea submissions were allowed.
Later, all the registered teams had to appear for a coding round to be eligible for the hackathon. This was held between May 1st and 2nd.
All the teams were judged based on the idea submission, and the shortlisted teams were announced on 17th May.
We were provided time from 17th May to 30th May to build the Prototype of our idea. The prototype was to be submitted along with a demo video explaining our project, and we also shared the GitHub link to the project repository.
On June 4th, results were declared, and we were among the top 10 teams. We had to give a presentation about our project in front of the judges on June 11th. The results of the top 3 winners were declared on the same day, and unfortunately, we couldn’t make it to the top 3.
But it was a great experience to be part of such a mega event and to be in the top 10. We received amazing swags from Amazon for being in the top 10. Next comes the most important benefit that we got out of this hackathon.
After a few weeks of the hackathon's conclusion, we received an email about PPI (Pre Placement Interview) opportunity at Amazon. You might know that one usually has to attend a coding round to get shortlisted for the interviews. But through PPI, we will be given a chance to bypass the coding round and attend the interview directly. We can definitely call this a boon if you don't have much expertise in CP. This was the best benefit that I had got through the Hackathon.
Lastly, the article would be incomplete if I don’t mention my amazing teammates Sai Krishna, Shrirang, and Kartikeya.
