Built a feature rich hackathon and ideathon platform for student orgs and companies.

The project started when a friend from another student organization reached out, expecting a simple static website to host basic information about their hackathon. Instead, I saw an opportunity to build something far more durable and reusable — a platform that could support not just one event, but every future hackathon or ideathon run by any student organization or company. I wanted Ascend to feel less like a one-off website and more like real infrastructure. That mindset shaped every decision, from the data model to the user flows for organizers, participants, judges, and admins. I focused on building a system that reduced operational overhead while still feeling intuitive and polished to use. The most rewarding moment was walking my friend through the finished platform and watching their expectations completely shift — from ‘this will work for one quarter’ to ‘we can run everything on this.’ Building Ascend reinforced for me how powerful software can be when it directly removes friction from real workflows, not just when it looks good on the surface.