Tejas Chakrapani, 17
Tejas Chakrapani: The Teen Who Builds Hackathon Highways
Tejas Chakrapani’s tech journey started with assembling a PC alongside his dad, sparked by the glow of a GTX 1080’s red LEDs.“I quickly realized I enjoyed software more than hardware, so I shifted from programming robots in C to building tools that automated my life,” he explains. That shift launched him on a hackathon sprint that still has not slowed.
Today Tejas is a high‑school senior in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, yet his résumé reads like that of a seasoned community builder. He is the founder and president of Hack United, a 501(c)(3) that “cultivates soft skills through hands‑on experiences” for tech‑curious students. In just two years Hack United has hosted five global online hackathons, drawn more than 2,500 registrants, reached over 15,000 innovators through workshops and events, and gathered thousands of Discord community members. Recently, they were featured in leading news outlets such as the Associated Press, Barchart, ABC News 10, and more.
Closer to home he leads RidgeHacks, his school’s annual in‑person event. This year’s gathering welcomed 120 coders on campus. Tejas introduced a new “Startup Ready” track, funded the prizes, helped judge the pitches, and arranged a mentoring session with the founder of a 15‑million‑dollar Series A company for the winning team. Not bad for someone who walked into RidgeHacks as an eighth‑grade first‑timer just a few years ago.
Competing still fires him up. His trophy cabinet already includes wins at HackNYU, Treasure Hacks 3.5, Scrapyard Flagship, honorable mentions at PennApps and Omi Apps, and countless other first-place finishes at local hackathons. “One of my favorite parts of hackathons is the last-minute adrenaline rush that comes with fixing the final bug or perfecting the presentation just before the deadline,” he says, recalling an all-night sprint at HackNYU that moved to a PhD conference room when the library closed.
The hacker community has opened other doors, too. A chance connection landed Tejas a summer engineering internship at Wander, a startup that closed their $50M series B round in May. He even turned his love of storytelling into a book, The Paths of the 50 Most Influential Leaders of All Time, which holds a 4.8‑star rating on Amazon. “Technology, hackathons, and the hacker community have completely transformed my life,” he says, crediting friends and mentors for pushing him to think bigger.
Tejas primarily works with languages like Python and Typescript while using frameworks like Next.js, but he enjoys experimenting across the stack. He lives inside GitHub and admits to relying on git reset --hard origin/main more than he'd like. Outside of coding, he edits videos—with over seven years of experience and 15 million client views—and lifts weights, often sharing training tips with teammates between commits.
Whether he is guiding first‑time coders to a podium finish or chasing his own next medal, Tejas builds the on‑ramps that turn curious students into confident creators. His secret is no secret at all: “Attend one hackathon, meet more cool people, build more cool projects, and the cycle repeats.”
Quick Facts
Tejas Chakrapani, 17
Tejas Chakrapani: The Teen Who Builds Hackathon Highways
Tejas Chakrapani’s tech journey started with assembling a PC alongside his dad, sparked by the glow of a GTX 1080’s red LEDs.“I quickly realized I enjoyed software more than hardware, so I shifted from programming robots in C to building tools that automated my life,” he explains. That shift launched him on a hackathon sprint that still has not slowed.
Today Tejas is a high‑school senior in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, yet his résumé reads like that of a seasoned community builder. He is the founder and president of Hack United, a 501(c)(3) that “cultivates soft skills through hands‑on experiences” for tech‑curious students. In just two years Hack United has hosted five global online hackathons, drawn more than 2,500 registrants, reached over 15,000 innovators through workshops and events, and gathered thousands of Discord community members. Recently, they were featured in leading news outlets such as the Associated Press, Barchart, ABC News 10, and more.
Closer to home he leads RidgeHacks, his school’s annual in‑person event. This year’s gathering welcomed 120 coders on campus. Tejas introduced a new “Startup Ready” track, funded the prizes, helped judge the pitches, and arranged a mentoring session with the founder of a 15‑million‑dollar Series A company for the winning team. Not bad for someone who walked into RidgeHacks as an eighth‑grade first‑timer just a few years ago.
Competing still fires him up. His trophy cabinet already includes wins at HackNYU, Treasure Hacks 3.5, Scrapyard Flagship, honorable mentions at PennApps and Omi Apps, and countless other first-place finishes at local hackathons. “One of my favorite parts of hackathons is the last-minute adrenaline rush that comes with fixing the final bug or perfecting the presentation just before the deadline,” he says, recalling an all-night sprint at HackNYU that moved to a PhD conference room when the library closed.
The hacker community has opened other doors, too. A chance connection landed Tejas a summer engineering internship at Wander, a startup that closed their $50M series B round in May. He even turned his love of storytelling into a book, The Paths of the 50 Most Influential Leaders of All Time, which holds a 4.8‑star rating on Amazon. “Technology, hackathons, and the hacker community have completely transformed my life,” he says, crediting friends and mentors for pushing him to think bigger.
Tejas primarily works with languages like Python and Typescript while using frameworks like Next.js, but he enjoys experimenting across the stack. He lives inside GitHub and admits to relying on git reset --hard origin/main more than he'd like. Outside of coding, he edits videos—with over seven years of experience and 15 million client views—and lifts weights, often sharing training tips with teammates between commits.
Whether he is guiding first‑time coders to a podium finish or chasing his own next medal, Tejas builds the on‑ramps that turn curious students into confident creators. His secret is no secret at all: “Attend one hackathon, meet more cool people, build more cool projects, and the cycle repeats.”
