Meet the Spring 2016 hackNY Student Hackathon Judges

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Mar 25

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hackNY's Spring 2016 Student Hackathon is just over a week away! We've lined up a team of judges with expertise in programming, design, and entrepreneurship to pick the best hacks. Check out the list of prizes we will be awarding on Devpost.

	Minerva TantocoChief Technology Officer, City of New YorkAs NYC’s first-ever CTO, Tantoco directs the Mayor’s Office of Technology and Innovation with responsibility for the development and implementation of a coordinated citywide strategy on technology and innovation and encouraging collaboration across agencies and with the wider New York City technology ecosystem. While still in college, Ms. Tantoco co-founded technology startup, Manageware Inc, which was successfully sold five years later. Since then, Ms. Tantoco has led emerging technology initiatives including artificial intelligence, e-commerce, virtualization, online marketing and mobile applications. She holds four US patents on intelligent workflow and is a speaker and author on mobile, security, big data, and innovation.
	Stacey MulcahySenior Technical Evangelist, MicrosoftStacey Mulcahy is a technical evangelist with Microsoft. Prior, she was the Lead Developer working with a variety of technologies at Big Spaceship, a digital agency based out of Brooklyn, NY. She has worked at Teknision and Fuel Industries in Ottawa, Canada, and IQ Interactive in Atlanta in a variety of technical roles. A technical editor and instructor, Stacey enjoys sharing her love for her work in interactive development. She considers her lack of verbal filter and extreme candor just a small part of her charm. She runs Young Game Makers – a program to inspire kids to love code through game making. She says, “hackNY hackathons always have some of the most polished and curious projects, judging is always so much fun.”
	Yael ElmatadSenior Data Scientist, TapadYael works on Graph Problems related to building Tapad’s Device Graph. Before coming to Tapad, Yael was an Assistant Professor and researcher at NYU, working with high performance computing to study physical systems. She spoke to last summer’s hackNY Fellows about Tapad’s data science as part of our Speakers Series. She says, “I am very eager to meet more intelligent young computer scientists through hackNY and looking forward to seeing what creative solutions they have come up with.”
	Renee DiRestaVP Business Development, HavenRenee DiResta is the Vice President of Business Development at Haven, a startup in San Francisco that is creating an automated platform for freight procurement. She is an angel investor and adviser to hardware startups and was previous a VC at O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures and a trader at Jane Street Capital. Her book, The Hardware Startup, was recently published by O’Reilly Media. She says, “Participating in hackathons has been one of my favorite ways to meet and learn from new people. I can’t wait to see the exciting projects created by the hackNY participants.”
	Courteney ErvinDeveloper, New York Public LibraryCourteney Ervin works in the space where open source meets social good. She’s a developer at the New York Public Library, where she supports accessible literacy in the city and beyond. “I love seeing what people create when they care passionately about the problems they’re solving.”
	Allie DiraclesCo-Founder and CEO, VidcodeAlexandra Diracles started her career as a photographer and business owner. She studied computer programming in graduate school and fell in love with the creative potential of code. Since then she has made it her mission at Vidcode to create tools that help teen girls find their path and passion to code. “The power to build your own products, tools and businesses with code is huge. I can’t wait to see what the hackNY hackers have created.”