PantherHacks 2026 highlights innovation, sets new records in the process

Collage by Easton Clark, Photo Editor

In just 48 hours, Chapman students turned ideas into reality in this year's PantherHacks.

With a record high of 79 participants from schools across California — from UCLA to Santa Clara University and many more in between — this year’s PantherHacks proved to be a success. 

“Hopefully, those connections turn into lasting relationships, especially between students from different schools,” Nataniel Farzan, co-president of PantherHacks and senior computer science major, said about the range of participants.

The event involves teams ranging from hackers working solo to groups of up to four creating  software projects to solve real-world problems. With many different tracks for hackers to choose from, their products will impact a wide range of fields.

“This year we had four tracks: cybersecurity, entertainment, healthcare and sustainability,” Farzan said. “You choose one and build a project within that theme. It helps guide ideas, but still gives teams creative freedom.”

This year’s projects varied widely in scope and ambition, tackling fields from forensics to video editing and even a project to translate medical jargon. They also brought in industry professionals to inspire participants.

“We also had industry guests speak for each track to inspire participants,” Farzan said. “Our keynote speaker was Dr. Sharief Taraman. He’s a medical doctor at CHOC (Children’s Hospital of Orange County), CEO of a healthcare tech company and a part-time professor. He talked about the future of AI in healthcare.”

While the event itself is just 48 hours in the Sandhu Conference Center, PantherHacks executive member and senior computer science major Joel Escobar highlights the potential for these projects to have a real-world impact.

“A lot of (the projects) start as proof-of-concept projects, but have the potential to grow into full products,” Escobar said. “For example, one of the runner-ups was an autonomous white hat hacker powered by AI. As companies rely more on AI for security, something like that could definitely become a real-world tool with the right development and resources.”

Despite the various impacts the projects may have, Farzan notes that results are not the only goal; communication is.

“Hackathons are about learning and collaboration more than just winning,” Farzan said. “People were constantly talking, sharing ideas, asking questions — it was a really lively environment.”

This heavy focus on communication results in the Hacker’s Choice Award. This is an award given to one project each year, voted on by the competing hackers, not by judges. This aspect of the competition aims to promote being social, not just by asking for help, but by connecting.

“The healthcare team actually campaigned; they went table to table, showed their project and had a catchy video,” Farzan said. “They were really social, which helped them win.”

Even outside of the award, communication continued to thrive among all participants.

“Even though everyone was competing against each other, there was so much collaboration happening. I actually watched one team stop what they were doing to help another team debug their code,” said Jeffrey Bok, senior software engineering major and co-president of PantherHacks. “In a competition setting, that says a lot about the kind of community we have built here.”

By creating a space where students can be together and be creative, PantherHacks continues to prove the possibility for innovation. As the event continues to grow, so will the projects students make.