Richland Two kicks off fourth annual student hackathon

Students challenged to improve their schools and community

Always in search of the next bright idea, Richland School District Two, in Columbia, SC, is set to host its fourth annual student hackathon. The spirit of hacking is tackling challenging problems with elegant, immediate, and compelling solutions. R2 Innovates, a district initiative whose purpose is to encourage design thinking, foster creativity through collaboration and bring amazing ideas to life, asked high school students for ways to improve their schools and community. Students will seek solutions to the following questions: How would you re-design or improve your school or local community this school year? How could you and your friends hack current problems to make our schools and community better places?

R2 Innovates will convene over 150 Richland Two high school students from 9:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. on Friday, March 1, at the Richland Two Institute of Innovation (R2i2) Student Innovation Center located at 763 Fashion Drive in Columbia. Students will learn tenets of design thinking and then put those principles to work in creating solutions (“hacks”) for their problems. School, district, and community mentors will support students in the work, and free food and activities will be provided to buoy spirits as they hack through the day!

In the evening, student teams will pitch their solutions to a panel of community member judges who will select top ideas to move into the implementation stage. Funding, resourcing, and connections will be provided to help student-generated solutions make real changes in our schools and community this spring.