Avery Bischoff ’26 came to the Hack-A-Thon with absolutely no experience coding, she’s the first to admit. The Marketing major says it always sounded interesting but just beyond her grasp.

A few hours into the event, though, you never would have guessed that.

Aided by Cursor, an AI code editor, Bischoff has already completed the event’s warm-up assignment — developing “Bulldog,” a basic, Bryant-centric communications platform complete with “Barks” for messages and “Treats” for likes — and now she’s figuring out how to customize it with bespoke colors and other effects.

“I wanted to add a little personality,” she says with a laugh.

When she shows off her flourishes, the rest of her table, largely made up of her friends from Bryant’s Swimming and Diving Team, let out a cheer. They’re joined by professional coders and entrepreneurs from startup accelerator SiliconXL, who have joined the Bryant community for the day to help the students learn an invaluable new skill and compete for more than $3,500 in prize money, provided by Silcon XL.

But beyond the praise, Bischoff notes, is the pride she feels in her work. “One of the best things about an event like this is we get to try something completely new — and learn what we’re capable of,” she says.

Bryant students, faculty, and university leadership all pack the Academic Innovation Center’s Professor Michael Lynch Classroom for the Hack-A-Thon, organized in partnership between the university, Bryant’s chapter of the Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization, and Silicon XL. Part of Bryant’s Research and Engagement Day, the day-long competition tasked students with harnessing the power of artificially intelligent coding assistants to create solutions to real-world problems.

“We’ve held events like this before, but that was more about learning about processes and creating mock-ups,” explains Chuck LoCurto, Bryant's vice president for information and chief information officer. “This is the first time students are using the actual tools they need to start to bring their ideas to life.”

This year’s added AI element — and the university-wide support the move has received — is emblematic of Bryant’s “all in” focus on embracing artificial intelligence, states LoCurto, who points out that more than fifty students participated in the Hack-A-Thon. From launching new AI-focused academic programs to creating CIO 100 Award-winning AI tutors and resources, the university is committed to ensuring that students have what it takes to lead in a technology-driven future.

For many of the students, who have no prior experience with coding, that future starts today, LoCurto says. “It’s about coming up with an idea and going for it,” he states. “In the future, when an interviewer asks them what they know about working with AI, they can show them what they actually did today.”

SiliconXL co-founder and CEO Claude Arnell Milhouse drove that point home in his opening address. “The future is here, but it's not equally distributed,” he tells the students. Being able to use AI to its full potential — no matter your field — is quickly moving from a rare talent to a must-have skill. Through the experience they gain today, he suggests, the students taking part in the Hack-A-Thon will be ahead of the game.

“An event like this is like drinking from the firehose.” 

“The world is at a point of tectonic and seismic change,” Milhouse, who was recently recognized as one of the 10 Most Influential People in Rhode Island by Providence Business News, shares with his audience. “In the next ten years the world is going to change more than it has in the past 600 years — and those who aren't ready and prepared are going to get left behind.”

In the start-up world, he explains, you are always looking for something that sets you apart. “This is your unfair advantage,” Milhouse advises.

Throughout the day, Milhouse and his team, assisted by Bryant's technology staff, roam from table to table, offering advice and helping to troubleshoot tricky errors — but also just conversing with the students, getting to know them and sharing stories and anecdotes from their careers.

“It’s definitely useful to talk to them and see how what we’re learning can be applied in the real world,” says Kate Farley ’25MSDS. “You always hear about their field, but it's really good to actually get to meet people who do what they do in person and learn more about their work.”

Farley’s all-women team of aspiring coders, three Bryant’s Masters of Data Science students and an undergraduate majoring in Information Systems and Analytics, saw the Hack-A-Thon as a chance to stretch their education in a new direction. “We usually focus on coding to do analytics or predictive algorithms,” Farley notes. “This is more about the development and creation side, which I think we’re all looking forward to getting more experience in.”

That focus on creation makes the day truly come alive, says Dave Gannon, Bryant’s director of technology and innovation. “An event like this is like drinking from the firehose,” he notes. “The Hack-A-Thon is a chance for the students to come up with an idea and almost instantly turn it into a prototype, that you can then demonstrate and get feedback on.”

 “It’s about taking all of the important things they learn in in the classroom and bringing in new perspectives, and people with different expertise.”

Bryant University Trustee Kim Anderson ’22H first connected Bryant’s chapter of the Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization with Milhouse and SiliconXL, notes Tyler Griffith ’26, a former CEO president who helped to organize the Hack-A-Thon. He’s since spoken to the group several times and even helped to judge Bryant’s Global Pitch Competition, where first-year students develop ideas that address international issues.

“We’re trying to make sure that students have everything they need to succeed,” says Griffith, “It’s about taking all of the important things they learn in in the classroom and bringing in new perspectives, and people with different expertise.”

With building Bulldog   under their belt, the students move on to the second half of the day — turning their own ideas into working prototypes. At the end of the sprint, they’ll be judged on how fully developed their project is as well as its viability.

For many of the teams, this part takes on a personal aspect. Olivia Stephenson ’25 is a Health Sciences major who also works as an EMT and medical assistant. Her group spent the day working together to create CivicSource — a resource that identifies and tracks public health issues and helps volunteers understand where their services can best be put to use.

Before today, Stephenson admits, she’d never really thought about how she could use coding and AI to make a difference in her chosen field — and the Hack-A-Thon has been eye-opening. “I've never done anything like this before, so being able to create our vision like this was incredible,” she shares.

As the students prepare to present their projects, the Hack-A-Thon hits its first and only real snag: Originally, the plan was for just the top five teams to share their work. But the SiliconXL Team is so impressed, they decide that everyone should have the chance to demonstrate the fruits of the labor.

Over the course of the next hour, 11 teams rollout projects ranging from “Bryant VerifyED,” a blockchain-backed certification verification service, to “PodPlus,” a real-time AI-powered fact checker for podcasts, to “BorrowBox,” a forum for students to lend out everyday items to one another.

The SiliconXL experts nod along to several of the team’s demonstrations and by the time the presentations are over, their heads are seemingly spinning. Milhouse praises the students on how far they’ve come; with the help of their mentors and AI assistants, they’ve done weeks’ worth of coding in just a few hours, he notes.

With the showcase concluded, the judges, a mix of the SiliconXL guests and Bryant representatives, then retreat briefly to tabulate their votes. The ultimate winner is Farley’s team and their project “Swipe U” — a forum where college students can make connections with one another, from matching with roommates to finding study buddies to sparking potential romances

Building community is an idea that had a special resonance for the team, suggests Maggie Sikand ’24 ’25MSDS — part of the Swipe U team — and was especially meaningful at today’s event. Almost as good as winning, she says, was seeing all of the other incredible ideas driven by her peers.

The day concludes with yet another twist — a fourth prize has been added to the competition., Once again, the final submissions were even stronger than the organizers had imagined.

But Bryant Assistant Professor of Information Systems and Analytics Geri Dimas, Ph.D., isn’t surprised at all. “Bryant students are just built differently,” she interjects, to a round of applause from the room.