There are times when Dylan Vidal, Leonard Gofman, and Richard Phillips get together and sound like brothers, or at least roommates. They laugh at random comments with the inside knowledge of guys who have done some life together. They finish each other’s stories because they know them so well. They share a passion for technology, yet you wouldn’t describe any of them as hard-wired, impersonal tech enthusiasts — quite the opposite, actually. And that has become their most unique connection.
“I think we’d agree that it all points back to the culture of Knight Hacks,” says Vidal, president of UCF’s widely acclaimed software-development and hackathon organization. His is the first of many references to that word: culture.
Gofman, vice president of Knight Hacks, makes a slight addition. “The culture and community, that’s what sets us apart.”
Phillips, who organizes events as Hack lead, tightens the bow. “I think you guys said it all.”
The computer science students aren’t trying to sell Knight Hacks, just expressing out loud how they’ve experienced UCF’s hack world. Vidal, a senior, wondered if he was tech-savvy enough when he first sampled the club. “Now,” he says, “I could talk about Knight Hacks forever.”
Gofman and Phillips raise their eyebrows and nod, as if admitting either, “Yes, we could,” or “Yes, he could.”
During a typical week during the fall semester they will spend at least three evenings with Knight Hacks members, visitors, organizers and sponsors. No one shows up because they have to, it’s because they want to. The club — which started 10 years ago with 80 members and now boasts 1,000 — offers mentorship, tech workshops, interview training, preparation for internships and a home where like-minded students can create usable technology while asking each other, “What can I do to make this idea better?”
“A lot of students come with their heads down, maybe thinking of Knight Hacks only as a path into job recruitment,” Gofman says. “They might anticipate a seriously competitive environment where you have to prove yourself, and then find themselves in this fun, helpful community.”
He has just described how he, Vidal, and Phillips came to know Knight Hacks. Where they once envisioned the future of technology from a distance, they now envision the future with themselves in it.
“There can be a feeling in technology that what you know is never good enough,” Vidal says. “That’s why Knight Hacks has been such a game-changer, even for our officers and directors.”
Phillips clears his throat. “It’s true. I’ve been there.”
He tells the story of coming to UCF as a transfer student from Broward Community College and immediately being surrounded by really smart computer science majors.
“I had to get through —what’s that word?” Phillips says.
“Imposter syndrome?” Vidal says.
“That’s it, imposter syndrome,” Phillips says.
“I was riddled with imposter syndrome, too,” Vidal says. It’s a surprising admission from the confident leaders they are today.
For Phillips, everything changed when he attended his first Hack Day.
“Those same smart people helped me debug a code I’d been struggling with,” he says. “They leveled me up and made me feel like I belong. From that day forward, I wanted to be like them — highly skilled and willing to help others.”
The willingness to help is one of many bridges that makes the Knight Hacks culture so unique. There are also bridges to knowledge, relationships and into the massively real world of technology. Those bridges spanned the country this summer as Vidal is in Santa Clara, California, where he interns with Nvidia. Gofman was in Bellevue, Washington, interning with Statsig, and Phillips was interning in Miami with Florida Blue, which chose him from a pool of 3,000 applicants.
“The mock interviews we do at Knight Hacks helped us tremendously,” Vidal says. “I have to emphasize again, the culture of the organization is so much more than coding.”
Gofman: “Tech companies are looking for candidates who know how to work in teams.”
Phillips: “Candidates who always want to keep learning.”
Back to Vidal: “We’ve learned little tricks of the trade through mentorship. For example, I was told to scan the QR codes at trade events to improve my position in each company’s database. We also learned how to make our resumes more performant as they pass through algorithms. It exemplifies our mission: to bridge the gap from the classroom to industry.”
Thousands of students have crossed the bridge since Knight Hacks launched in 2015. Many of them have been introduced to the organization’s culture at its signature annual event: fall Hackathon.
“Hackathon is the pinnacle,” Vidal says.
This year, on Friday, Oct. 24, more than 600 students will begin showing up at UCF’s engineering buildings and business administration buildings, carrying laptops, pillows, toothbrushes, and maybe a sleeping bag or air mattress. At exactly 10 p.m., the software-building marathon will begin. For the next 36 hours, participants will code, collaborate and grow from being around each other. Some might nap. Sponsors will provide seven meals and unlimited water and energy drinks.
“We make it a point to have fun, but essentially, hackathon is whatever each person wants it to be,” Vidal says. “Some will focus only on the golden trophy — not stopping to eat, just coding, coding, coding. That’s fine. But they might miss the benefits of Hackathon and the interesting nuances that make Knight Hacks special.”
Among the interesting nuances are midnight karaoke, a frying pan award for the most obscure project, and a paper airplane competition at 2 a.m. to encourage participants to look up, clear their eyes, and take it all in.
“The paper airplane competition started as an off-the-wall idea and wound up with a sponsor,” Gofman says. “It shows us that tech companies really do value our culture.”
They value the talented people within it, too, knowing that any college student who chooses participate in Hackathon could instead be doing “traditional” college student things — playing games, going to the beach and sleeping.
“Instead, we’re up all night building software and building relationships,” Vidal says.
The clearest illustration of the Knight Hack culture mentioned again and again during this interview are, ironically, the three students on the call. At various times, they each say they weren’t the most social or confident programmer when they enrolled at UCF. You’d never know it from the way they speak or from the locations where they’re interning.
Gofman: “You never know where a first step will take you.”
Phillips: “It’s never too early and never too late.”
Vidal: “Like I said, we could talk about this forever.”
He seems to mean it literally. The real world of technology, however, never stops spinning. And these Knights have work to do.
