Whiteboard Challenge

- Season 1

(2021)

The Whiteboard Challenge is a revolutionary game and talk show simulating the software engineering interview process. With decades of experience in the industry, Michael Kureth envisioned a show that would display the competitiveness of the industry and provide commentary on controversial tech topics. Three contestants will have the chance to impress the judges, all tech-industry insiders, for a chance to show off their technical prowess both on the whiteboard and in a side by side nanosecond timed competition. With more than twenty-five million software engineers ...

Inspired by Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, and Katherine Gobels Johnson for calculating the launch of astronaut John Glenn into orbit. Contestants, all African American women, write an algorithm to navigate a spacecraft from Earth to Mars.

Inspired by Grace Hopper who invented the first computer compiler. Contestants, all women, write an algorithm to transpile sets of code into another computer language.

Inspired by John Forbes Nash Jr. who made contributions to game theory and partial differential equations. Contestants, all with hidden disabilities, write a machine learning algorithm that uses game theory to predict optimal behaviors.

Inspired by Alan Turing, the cryptanalyst who solved Enigma, the device used by the German military command to encode strategic messages. Contestants, all war veterans, write an algorithm to encrypt and decrypt a complex set of messages.

Inspired by Aaron Swartz, the child computer prodigy who advocated for information to be free. Contestants, all child prodigies, write an algorithm to catalog large sets of data with indexing and search functionality.

Inspired by Ada Lovelace, known as "the first computer programmer;" daughter of poet, Lord Byron; and mathematician physicist, Lady Byron. Contestants, all musicians and poets, write a program to rhyme phrases and create syllabic stanzas.

Inspired by Roy Clay Sr., known as the "Godfather of Silicon Valley" who wrote software to simulate how particles spread after an atomic explosion. Contestants, all with startups, write the core algorithm for particle generation.

Inspired by Julian Assange, known for creating WikiLeaks and hacking government, educational, and corporate networks. Contestants, all reformed hackers, write algorithms to hack data from unknown sources before optimizing for archival.

Inspired by the many homeless software engineers in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Contestants, all homeless or formerly homeless, write an algorithm of a self driving vehicle as the core mechanic behind a ways based map application.

Contestants diagram and detail the architecture for a game similar to Pokémon Go which includes deep knowledge of mobile application development, site reliability engineering, database architecture, user experience design, and more.

Contestants diagram and detail the architecture for a digital streaming service similar to Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime which includes deep knowledge across many disciplines of software engineering and architecture.

Contestants diagram and detail the architecture for a social network similar to Facebook which includes deep knowledge across many disciplines of software engineering and architecture.

Contestants answer behavioral and situational based questions while connected to a polygraph machine. The winner is decided by votes from the audience based on personal preference unrelated to the contestants' skill and ability.