HackCamp returns in 2024 with students completing industry driven projects

Salford’s HackCamp, led by Professor Julian Bass, enables second-year Computer Science and Software Engineer students to collaborate in teams on an intensive software development project. Over 150 students took part in the programme where they approached a range of challenges, including dynamic user experience, customer feedback aggregation and placement search, which is then assessed and judged by the industry experts and academics.

HackCamp is designed around giving students an industry level task, and this year saw the teams work towards a brief that required them to create solutions that could help us calculate, analyse, and report our cloud carbon footprint.

The program involves engaging with industry partners, including Matillion, Morsons, ABL, Competa, Red Ocelot, BCS Manchester, the Chartered Institute for IT, Chippy Digital and IRIS Software Group in a task set to challenge their abilities and give them a taste of industry work. The value of participating in HackCamp is immeasurable for students, providing them with practical industry experience and opportunities to network with employers to secure future careers.

One of the HackCamp participants, Sheikh Atif, a Second Year Software Engineering Student said: “HackCamp is a great opportunity to challenge yourself. Not everything will go to plan when you’re working in the industry, HackCamp will introduce realistic challenges and difficulties for the team to develop their skills collectively as well as individually.”

Professor Julian Bass said: “Our HackCamp partners, play a vital role in helping students understand how software projects work in practice. The projects provide a fantastic opportunity to work with industrial partners and experienced practitioners, applying the agile software development methods they learn about in class.”

Kate Whitmore, Talent Programme Manager, and John Ferguson, Head of Architecture and Engineering from IRIS Software Group commented on the students’ success saying: “The student presentations were excellent, and the amount of work each of the teams had managed to achieve in just a few short weeks was impressive. It’s been fantastic working with the students; giving them some experienced of real-world problem solving and get their fresh and unique perspectives on issues we’re working on in the business.”