Stetson University will host its third annual hackathon on April 7-8 in DeLand and feature an extra competition designed by engineers at Apple that will award an interview with Apple to the winner.

“Apple has confirmed they will sponsor us, and they will be sending a senior security manager and security engineers to the event to meet the students,” said Joshua Eckroth, Ph.D., an assistant professor of Computer Science at Stetson. “Apple will also host a security competition with the winner guaranteed an interview with Apple.”

The 30-hour hackathon is being expanded this year with many new events and has been renamed The Greater Central Florida Tech Faire + Hackathon. The new events include capture the flag (security challenges), coding interview challenges, tech talks by the Stetson Computer Science faculty and corporate sponsors, as well as the usual food and impromptu games.

“This year, we are significantly expanding the number of activities, faculty lectures and prizes,” the event website says.

The hackathon is free and open to high school and college students from across the state and nation. Minors must bring a chaperone to the overnight event. Participants can register on The Greater Central Florida Tech Faire + Hackathon website.

Last year, more than 200 university students from around the country attended sudo HackStetson, which is organized each year by the Stetson Math/Computer Science department. Other major sponsors this year include Google and Electronic Arts.

For questions, email [email protected] or Professor Eckroth at [email protected].