Jan Carbonell, 29
Jan Carbonell: From Learning to Program by Winning Hackathons to Launching Success Stories by Organizing Them
Meet Jan Carbonell (Class of ’24), a dynamic MLH organizer whose journey into the tech world is a testament to the transformative power of hackathons. Jan wrote his very first line of code at an MLH hackathon in Barcelona at HackUPC back in 2016. That pivotal experience didn't just teach him to code; the project developed there won a sponsor award, helped raise funds for a non-profit, and even earned him a nomination for MIT under 35. This whirlwind start inspired Jan to move away from industrial engineering and teach himself to code as well as attend and win hackathons across Europe.
Jan strongly believes that hackathons are unmatched spaces for learning, connection, and experimentation. Seeing a gap in LLM-focused hackathons in the US when GPT-4 emerged, he took the initiative to build a vibrant community around this cutting-edge technology. In just one year during his Cornell University master’s program, his efforts resulted in five LLM-related hackathons, including the world's largest OSS hackathon (osshack.com), raising over $30,000 in sponsorships from giants like Anthropic, Modal, and Google, and distributing more than $200,000 in prizes and credits. These events have become fertile ground for innovation, helping YC startups source founding engineers and enabling participants to launch successful ventures. One participant even started math-gpt.org, dropped out of Cornell, and exceeded $1 million in ARR.
His hackathon stories are legendary, such as encouraging two hackers from Barcelona to attend Llamahack, who then won, started a company, Lingo.dev, graduated from YC, and raised $4.2 million. In another instance, his team helped build the first chat interface for what is now OpenRouter (openrouter.ai). In another instance, Jan contacted various successful entrepreneurs to record an introductory message for the hackathon and the responses included legends like Alexis Ohanian, cofounder of Reddit. Jan holds a B.Sc. in Industrial Engineering and an M.Sc. in Computer Science from Cornell University. He prefers TypeScript for web development and Python for LLMs.
Quick Facts
Jan Carbonell, 29
Jan Carbonell: From Learning to Program by Winning Hackathons to Launching Success Stories by Organizing Them
Meet Jan Carbonell (Class of ’24), a dynamic MLH organizer whose journey into the tech world is a testament to the transformative power of hackathons. Jan wrote his very first line of code at an MLH hackathon in Barcelona at HackUPC back in 2016. That pivotal experience didn't just teach him to code; the project developed there won a sponsor award, helped raise funds for a non-profit, and even earned him a nomination for MIT under 35. This whirlwind start inspired Jan to move away from industrial engineering and teach himself to code as well as attend and win hackathons across Europe.
Jan strongly believes that hackathons are unmatched spaces for learning, connection, and experimentation. Seeing a gap in LLM-focused hackathons in the US when GPT-4 emerged, he took the initiative to build a vibrant community around this cutting-edge technology. In just one year during his Cornell University master’s program, his efforts resulted in five LLM-related hackathons, including the world's largest OSS hackathon (osshack.com), raising over $30,000 in sponsorships from giants like Anthropic, Modal, and Google, and distributing more than $200,000 in prizes and credits. These events have become fertile ground for innovation, helping YC startups source founding engineers and enabling participants to launch successful ventures. One participant even started math-gpt.org, dropped out of Cornell, and exceeded $1 million in ARR.
His hackathon stories are legendary, such as encouraging two hackers from Barcelona to attend Llamahack, who then won, started a company, Lingo.dev, graduated from YC, and raised $4.2 million. In another instance, his team helped build the first chat interface for what is now OpenRouter (openrouter.ai). In another instance, Jan contacted various successful entrepreneurs to record an introductory message for the hackathon and the responses included legends like Alexis Ohanian, cofounder of Reddit. Jan holds a B.Sc. in Industrial Engineering and an M.Sc. in Computer Science from Cornell University. He prefers TypeScript for web development and Python for LLMs.
