Rachel Zhang, 20
Rachel Zhang: From Table Tennis Champ to Hackathon Powerhouse
If you had told sixth grade Rachel Zhang, fresh off a science fair project about Canadian astronaut Roberta Bondar, that one day she would build award‑winning iOS apps and host a district‑wide hackathon, she probably would have blinked twice and gone back to perfecting her table tennis serve.
Yet that is exactly where her story starts: with grit, a paddle, and an insatiable curiosity for building things.
Rachel is a computer engineering student at the University of Waterloo, Class of 2027, and she cheerfully calls herself a “hackathon lifer.” She is a five‑time hackathon winner, an MLH Fellow, and an open‑source contributor, but her love for tech never sprang from a textbook. It took off the day she spotted a VEX robot gliding across her high‑school club‑fair table, and that spark has burned brightly ever since.
“I didn’t see many people who looked like me in the room,” Rachel recalls of those early robotics meetings. “But my mentor believed in me, and that changed everything.” Encouraged, she dove into the Major League Hacking community, winning top honors at MLH‑sponsored events such as TechNova 2023 (Best UI/UX) and TechNova 2024 (Second Overall) and at major collegiate gatherings such as HackMIT 2024.
Her résumé runs deeper than trophies. Rachel was selected as an Apple Canada Developer Program (Swift Student Challenge) cohort champion—one of only eight from more than one hundred student developers—after building a secure iOS app to keep female students safe on campus. That award confirmed her belief that technology should serve real people, especially those who are too often overlooked.
Whether she is training Python models with OpenCV, prototyping a sustainability‑focused virtual closet, or sketching user flows in Figma, Rachel keeps community, empathy, and impact at the center. “Hackathons aren’t just competitions,” she says. “They are a place to grow fast, fail safely, and find your people.”
Rachel’s people are global. She mentored newcomers at MLH events and helped lead the organization of YRHacks 2023, a district‑wide hackathon that welcomed more than three hundred innovative high‑schoolers. As a National Youth Council Member for FIRST Robotics Canada, she also helped design robotics-themed events and hackathons that reach thousands of youth nationwide. One of her favorite moments was welcoming a Mandarin‑speaking teammate who feared a language barrier. “I made sure she felt heard, looped in, and supported,” Rachel says. “That is what real community looks like.”
When she is not coding or mentoring, you will find Rachel smashing forehands at table‑tennis tournaments. A provincial champion who has represented the Maritimes in national competitions, she credits the sport with teaching strategy, focus, and how to bounce back after a tough loss. “Honestly, table tennis taught me everything I know about resilience,” she laughs.
Now Rachel is on a mission to build what matters, open doors for others, and ensure every hacker—especially women and non‑binary students—feels they belong. In her own words, “I doubted myself a lot in the beginning. Now, I build so no one else has to.”
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Rachel Zhang, 20
Rachel Zhang: From Table Tennis Champ to Hackathon Powerhouse
If you had told sixth grade Rachel Zhang, fresh off a science fair project about Canadian astronaut Roberta Bondar, that one day she would build award‑winning iOS apps and host a district‑wide hackathon, she probably would have blinked twice and gone back to perfecting her table tennis serve.
Yet that is exactly where her story starts: with grit, a paddle, and an insatiable curiosity for building things.
Rachel is a computer engineering student at the University of Waterloo, Class of 2027, and she cheerfully calls herself a “hackathon lifer.” She is a five‑time hackathon winner, an MLH Fellow, and an open‑source contributor, but her love for tech never sprang from a textbook. It took off the day she spotted a VEX robot gliding across her high‑school club‑fair table, and that spark has burned brightly ever since.
“I didn’t see many people who looked like me in the room,” Rachel recalls of those early robotics meetings. “But my mentor believed in me, and that changed everything.” Encouraged, she dove into the Major League Hacking community, winning top honors at MLH‑sponsored events such as TechNova 2023 (Best UI/UX) and TechNova 2024 (Second Overall) and at major collegiate gatherings such as HackMIT 2024.
Her résumé runs deeper than trophies. Rachel was selected as an Apple Canada Developer Program (Swift Student Challenge) cohort champion—one of only eight from more than one hundred student developers—after building a secure iOS app to keep female students safe on campus. That award confirmed her belief that technology should serve real people, especially those who are too often overlooked.
Whether she is training Python models with OpenCV, prototyping a sustainability‑focused virtual closet, or sketching user flows in Figma, Rachel keeps community, empathy, and impact at the center. “Hackathons aren’t just competitions,” she says. “They are a place to grow fast, fail safely, and find your people.”
Rachel’s people are global. She mentored newcomers at MLH events and helped lead the organization of YRHacks 2023, a district‑wide hackathon that welcomed more than three hundred innovative high‑schoolers. As a National Youth Council Member for FIRST Robotics Canada, she also helped design robotics-themed events and hackathons that reach thousands of youth nationwide. One of her favorite moments was welcoming a Mandarin‑speaking teammate who feared a language barrier. “I made sure she felt heard, looped in, and supported,” Rachel says. “That is what real community looks like.”
When she is not coding or mentoring, you will find Rachel smashing forehands at table‑tennis tournaments. A provincial champion who has represented the Maritimes in national competitions, she credits the sport with teaching strategy, focus, and how to bounce back after a tough loss. “Honestly, table tennis taught me everything I know about resilience,” she laughs.
Now Rachel is on a mission to build what matters, open doors for others, and ensure every hacker—especially women and non‑binary students—feels they belong. In her own words, “I doubted myself a lot in the beginning. Now, I build so no one else has to.”
