hackNY holds semiannual, 24-hour "hackathons", and runs a summer Fellows Program which pairs students in the computational sciences with local startup companies.

[1] Each semester, hackNY holds a 24-hour coding marathon, or "hackathon", often at New York University's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, but in Spring 2013 at Columbia's Engineering School.

The students are encouraged, though not required, to work together to come up with creative solutions or build new features before the time runs out.

A list of startups that hosted students during previous years can be found here Archived 2019-10-06 at the Wayback Machine.

The students are compensated, receive free housing, and attend a lecture series showing them what it's like to join, or found, a startup company.