Our History

HackIllinois was founded by a team of students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in October 2013 with the mission to bring people together and create. In the first year, a team of 50 students assembled to spearhead logistics, finance, promotion, and tech to create the first-ever HackIllinois. 750 students from 21 schools came for the inaugural event, launching what would become one of the university’s biggest and favorite events.

In the years since, HackIllinois has grown immensely: from working in the world of open source to hosting a plethora of other events to adapting to virtual and hybrid formats, HackIllinois strives to bring students together to learn, create, and explore. Hack yeah!