HackUSU - My first hackathon overview
Recently, I participated in HackUSU, Utah State University's annual hackathon. Although my project was not security related, I gained valuable hands-on experience with data pipelines and APIs. It was my first hackathon, and ended up working alone in the hack-the-planet category. My prompt was to tackle a social challenge or wicked problem by creatively using technology to foster positive change, improve communities, or address global issues through innovative solutions. Getting in way over my head as someone without much experience in development and API usage, Canary was born. My submission was an attempt at an early detection service for natural disasters, harnessing the genius of the crowd. I used a small language model to analyze tweets, looking for an indicator of disaster, and if a hit was registered, then a pin would drop on my map interface using the geodata from the tweet itself. It almost worked, but then I met the limit of data from the free tier of the Twit...
