TreeHacks 2025 at Stanford
I was a mentor at @hackwithtrees earlier last month— it was an honor to provide guidance to teams and meet builders from around the world working on cool projects!
What is TreeHacks?
TreeHacks is Stanford’s premier hackathon. The country’s brightest engineering students are flown to Stanford’s campus to build solutions to the world’s largest challenges over an intense 36-hour period. Now in its 11th year, TreeHacks continues to be a platform for participants to dream and build the future!
Key statistics displayed:
1000 Hackers
30 Universities
12 Countries
40 Companies
350 Projects
$160k Prizes
36 Hours
My Role as a Mentor
As a mentor, I provided support in three key areas:
Technical guidance
Idea development
Pitch refinement
There were numerous impressive ideas and implementations throughout the event. What truly inspired me was witnessing the effort and resilience of teams working under such time constraints.
I particularly enjoy mentoring because it allows me to share knowledge from my own experiences. Having participated in several hackathons myself (you can view my portfolio at https://devpost.com/1grace), I understand the challenges and opportunities these events present.
Judging Criteria
Projects at TreeHacks 2025 were evaluated based on:
Creativity
The organizers sought projects that make you say “wow” and inspire you to tell others about them. They were looking for ideas that think so far outside the box that you begin to wonder why there was a box at all.
Technical Complexity
In just 36 hours, hackers built projects with remarkably complex infrastructures using advanced frameworks. Judges looked for projects running beautiful code or hardware under the hood.
Social Impact
TreeHacks prioritized projects that serve as blueprints for change, with potential to impact future generations in humanity’s most pressing areas of concern.
I want to extend my sincere thanks to the organizing team for their hard work and support in making TreeHacks 2025 an incredible event.
Interested in seeing what the participants created? Check out all the hacker submissions here:
https://treehacks-2025.devpost.com/