After thorough consideration, we’ve decided to cancel existing plans for Tech Roulette 2022.
We understand that this has been something that a lot of you have looked forward to, so we apologize if this comes as disappointing news.
Why?
To be very honest, we made this decision because we are not confident that we are able to provide a great experience this year. Tech Roulette has been a volunteer-run program, and last year the three of us worked extremely hard to make it happen, but with our staff’s current plans, the same level of effort this year no longer seemed possible. Instead of putting out a program that we cannot guarantee the quality of, we’d rather give you the ability to find a better supported program elsewhere.
We’re also aware that a majority of our shipments going out of the country last year ended up getting returned or lost. This was beyond our control and we really don’t have a solution to this at all.
So, what’s next?
Recommended Programs
If you're looking for something to do over the summer, check out these other incredible programs!
CodeDay Labs - https://labs.codeday.org, an online tech internship for everyone. Application deadline June 13.
CodeDay - https://www.codeday.org, 24 hour hackathon-like program in your local city (Penang, Sacramento, and San Diego events already open for registration). June 25 - 26, 2022, and happening seasonally in different cities. DM @mingjie if you want to go to an event that's currently open for registration -- happy to provide a discount/free ticket.
Replit Template Jam - https://blog.replit.com/template-jam, $10,000 USD in prizes to publish the best boilerplate for others to use on Replit. Submissions due June 23.
Replit Kajam - https://kajam.replit.com, Replit's Official Game Jam. Make a game in seven days, win prizes.
MLH Fellowship - https://fellowship.mlh.io, a fully remote, 12-week internship so you can learn software engineering through open-source projects. Rolling application.
Execute Big Will Return
We are putting together a new program to bring an experience similar to our Fellowship program to more people. Coming later this year!
Thank You.
We’re always happy to respond to your questions about virtually anything. Please email us instead: team@executebig.org.
Thanks for understanding, and enjoy your summer!
FAQ
Where can I view the list of Tech Roulette 2021 projects?
Why don’t you allow students to run Tech Roulette?
One of the only reasons 80% of people join TR is for prizes. Decentralized prize distribution is hard (almost impossible) and the shipping issues for internationally didn't get easier at all.
We had to do a ton of curriculum writing and fact checking. It'll be irresponsible for us to release curriculum without much auditing submitted by the community, and we don't have plans to hire anyone to do that yet.
There's a lot of handling of personal information (esp. for younger participants) that can get us into deep troubles if we don't handle them in-house & handle retention correctly. We cannot delegate this out to anyone.
Is Tech Roulette open-source?
Yes! Tech Roulette's source code is publicly available (written in really badly written code since we rushed it back then, sorry) — https://github.com/executebig/leap. If you want to figure out how to use it, you can — we've provided a minimal documentation on how to set it up. I cannot help you setting it up hands on (sorry, capacity low recently), but happy to answer any broader questions.
As a request, if you are planning to run anything with the software, please loop me in! Happy to advise on anything so you don't get into any troubles.
I didn’t receive my prize from Tech Roulette 2021 yet…
Unfortunately there’s nothing we can do at this point. We tried reshipping every returned package, and if your package still didn’t make it to its final destination, it’s either because your address was invalid or because it’s stuck at your country’s customs/post office. We have no control over circumstances like this and would like to apologize over this disappointing outcome.
