It’s been a while since I posted something here…

And it’s been some time since I last participated in a hackathon. What a weekend filled with all-nighters and introspection.

I arrived in California 2 days earlier for this competition to acclimate and get a feel of the environment. Solo travel always brings a mix of excitement and personal maturity. According to an article from Dr. Jenna Kirtley, “solo travel is a rewarding way to discover the world on your terms” (Kirtley, 2023).

I essentially took those first 2 days to visit Stanford campus, San Jose (my cousin’s ex-neighborhood and Westfield Mall where we used to hang out), and Berkeley downtown.

Here are some pictures that I took on my exploration:

Stanford Campus Exploration

Visiting Westfield Mall in San Jose

Berkeley Downtown

Hackathon at Berkeley


As a hackathon veteran—well, I guess it’s a well-deserved title after three hackathons? Anyway…

This past weekend has been a blast where I developed SpeakEazy, an app that using GenAI, aims to improve your delivery in public speaking. That’s it. What a good elevator pitch.

Well, there’s more to this area. As I switched from tinkering with Javascript and Hume API (turns out that it was not supported by the API but Typescript or Python), I faced a few challenges. Despite this, the experience was invaluable.

Here’s a bit more about my project:

SpeakEazy is designed to analyze and provide feedback on various aspects of your speech, including tone, pace, and clarity. The app utilizes advanced GenAI models to offer personalized tips and strategies to enhance your public speaking skills. The idea stemmed from one my teammates to tackle this huge tech gap with public speaking analysis and realization of how crucial effective communication is in your life.

One of the takeaways of the hackathon was the collaboration and mentorship from industry experts. The brainstorming sessions, coding sprints, and the final presentation were all intense yet incredibly rewarding. I had the opportunity to network with some brilliant minds and gain insights into the latest trends in AI and software development. I also got the opportunity to listen to Andrej Karpathy’s speech at the ceremony. Here’s a gist of what it’s been:

The judges were impressed with SpeakEazy, and I received some constructive feedback to further refine the app. The whole experience has motivated me to continue working on this project and possibly turn it into a startup initiative.

What a weekend! Looking forward to more solo travels! :smile: