Jasmine Brown, 19, a Computer Science student at the University of Warwick has been named one of 2022’s MLH Top 50–a list compiled each year by Major League Hacking (MLH) of the organization’s most inspiring community members. The recipients are recognized for their exceptional contributions to the tech ecosystem & STEM education.

Brown stood out from other applicants for demonstrating leadership within the hacker community. As the principal organizer for WarwickTECH, she organized Local Hack Days (now Global Hack Week), and spearheaded the hallmark hackathon known as WarwickHACK 2022. Despite never attending a hackathon herself before, she sought guidance and recruited a diverse team who could run a hybrid remote/in-person event that 210 people would want to sign up for.

“I'd been thinking about going to a hackathon for a while but was slightly apprehensive about whether I'd fit in or what I'd create, so the opportunity to organize WarwickHACK was the push I needed to finally get involved in the hacking community,” says Brown. “The fact that it was all so new to me definitely made it more challenging, but it also made it more exciting and I learned so much from the journey.”

Brown was around 10 years old when she discovered coding through Scratch. Her grandfather encouraged her interest by asking Brown to build a website about his garden. At 13, she taught herself Python and computer science quickly became one of her favorite subjects. As someone with experience working on projects independently, being part of the hackathon community has helped Brown see firsthand how technology and coding can bring people together.

“I’ve always found the idea of ‘networking’ to be quite daunting, so I didn’t really expect to be good at coordinating with everyone, but it turns out that getting to know like-minded people and collaborating with other hackers is both easier than expected, and also really rewarding,” says Brown. “The best part of the WarwickHACK weekend was getting to speak to all of the different hackers, to provide guidance on their projects, and to share my own skills where I could.”

“It is a high honor to be chosen as an MLH Top 50 recipient as each is selected from a pool of more than 150,000 active community members, comprising 1 in 3 new programmers in the United States (and even more abroad),” says Nick Quinlan, MLH Chief Operating Officer. ”To be selected is to have your achievements recognized as the top percent of the top percent of new technologists today.”

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Major League Hacking (MLH) is a mission-driven organization and certified B-Corp focused on empowering the next generation of technologists. MLH runs the largest community of early-career developers worldwide that now has more than 500,000 members. Through programs like hackathons, internships, and workshops, community members count on MLH to gain practical hands-on experience, build their professional networks, and ultimately launch their careers. MLH works with employers like AWS, Facebook, and Capital One to identify, train, and hire amazing, diverse technical talent directly from that community.