From Friday, Jan. 24 to Sunday, Jan 26, members of the Brandeis community took over Farber Library in order to make a difference in the operations of non-profit organizations in Waltham. Deis Hacks, “an annual social justice hackathon … [is] sponsored by Brandeis International Business School, [and] brings together students, faculty and community members to tackle challenges faced by local nonprofits.”

This hackathon lasted for 48 hours, as “teams collaborate[d] to develop solutions for real-world problems in areas like education, healthcare and housing, fostering creativity, technical skills and social impact.” The 2025 hackathon theme was Design for Community, Design for Impact. 

On Jan. 24, participants arrived at Farber Library at 5 p.m. to check in and join the discord, which is the primary form of communication for everything Deis Hacks. They then convened in the Rapaporte Treasure Hall for the opening ceremony. Following the ceremony, all participants dispersed to form their teams for the hackathon. 

Each team is made up of a Deis Hacks board fellow and three to six other participants. The board fellows each represent a different non-profit organization and are students in the BUS 297C: Leadership Internships in Social Impact Organizations Class. They spent all of fall semester connecting with their organization and preparing for the hackathon. Brandeis students from all walks of life served as board fellows, including Waltham Group President Natalie Saltzman ’25. 

In correspondence with The Justice on Feb. 10, Saltzman stated “With around 15 board fellows, the class is small, allowing for meaningful connections and collaboration with others. As a sociology major, this course has also been impactful in expanding my understanding of the quantitative side of things.” When reflecting on the intersectionality of the competition, she explained “This experience also tied in closely with my role as president of the Waltham Group. I had the opportunity to see many of the leadership skills I've developed come to life during Deis Hacks. I also work directly with the [Community Day Center of Waltham] through the Waltham Group, so this long standing partnership has been invaluable in understanding their challenges.”

Saltzman had the opportunity to represent CDCW as their board fellow, connecting the class with one of her main extracurriculars at Brandeis. Through this, she was able to leverage her preexisting relationships with their leadership team while working on her project. Saltzman explained, “for our Deis Hacks project, we developed a resource database to assist them in securing funding and resources for their Mission Metrowest 5k event in late April. While we didn't win a prize, the CDCW was thrilled with the product we created, and that, in itself, felt like a significant reward.”

The hackathon was co-founded by senior lecturer Ian Roy (BUS) ’05, who currently serves as the Event Director as well as the professor of the class. Roy’s leadership team is made up of many individuals, including students. On the student side of the team, Erica Hwang ’25 came back to Deis Hacks for another year as the Head Project Manager, with Co-Project Manager Avery Bishop. In correspondence with The Justice on Feb. 10, Hwang shared “It warms my heart to see the incredible dedication and creativity students pour into their projects. The energy and passion throughout the weekend were truly inspiring, and it was amazing to watch teams become so deeply invested in the nonprofit missions they were supporting. Seeing their ideas evolve and take shape in such a short time is a reminder of how much impact can be made when innovation meets purpose.”

Hwang’s former Co-Project Manager Vincent Calia-Bogan ’25 joined the hackathon in a different role this year, serving as the board fellow for Charles River Community Health. In a correspondence with The Justice on Feb. 10 he explained, “Having been a part of this program for four years now, I’m thrilled to see where it is now … I can’t wait to see where future classes take it into the future.” Calia-Bogan’s team ended up winning the entire hackathon with their  “checklist initiative designed to both formalize some procedures as well as provide more regular employee feedback to the whole company. Specifically, [they] designed a survey in qualtrics and used Application Programming Interface access to auto-populate a google sheet, which in turn is built to automatically update statistics in real-time as well as run Natural Language Processing to provide a sentiment score and clustered words or phrases that employees are reporting in the short answer sections of the quiz.” The goal of the project was for this to be done entirely automatically, “making the analytics of feedback data easy so that the institution can be more nimble when it comes to employee concerns and retention.” 

Following the formations of the teams, groups had the rest of Friday night, as well as all day Saturday, to work on their projects. Participants had a variety of workshops at their disposal, gaining the opportunity to learn new skills that would benefit their projects. Projects were due at 11 a.m. on Sunday, giving ample time for judging prior to the closing ceremony in the Rapaporte Treasure Hall at 5 p.m. 

At the closing ceremony, many projects and the winner were honored. Waltham Mayor Jeannette McCarthy was in attendance. She is quoted on the Deis Hacks website as stating “I was inspired by the ideas the students came up with for our local nonprofits. It’s refreshing to see that type of brain-power. They combined heart with brains and that’s a wonderful combination. This event goes to show that the types of things being done at Brandeis opens doors for students and their community.”

Her sentiments surrounding the positivity of the program were echoed by Calia-Bogan, as he stated “In terms of the impact Deis Hacks has had on me as a person: I estimate I’ve dedicated >1300 hours of my time to Deis Hacks over the 4 years I’ve been at Brandeis. I’ve been involved in organization the entire time, and ran it in 2023 and 2024. It’s been among the most educational experiences of my life — I’ve learned to pitch, organize, fundraise, speak in front of my peers, navigate a bureaucracy, and so much more.” When reflecting on the four years that he has spent as a part of this impactful organization, Calia-Bogan shared “I couldn’t have imagined the heights we’d reach. To me, it really is about the community we’re all a part of. There’s an incredible joy I get connecting students to their community, and watching them realize they really can make a change in it. that was why I did it, and continue to be a part of it.”

—The Justice Managing Editor Eliza Bier was an organizer for DeisHacks and employed by Brandeis Design and Innovation and did not write or edit the article.