How to find the perfect blockchain hackathon for you?
Today there are probably as many hackathons as types of sushi. But while choosing sushi doesn’t really matter (they’re all too similar anyway), choosing a hackathon can mean choosing the right connections, skills, and final products from a multitude of options.
What’s a hackathon?
A coding event of one to five days where participants solve a given problem in teams. The best solutions get prizes.
Some see hackathons as startup competitions where you can end up with an MVP (minimum viable product) — a practical software that you can deploy after the hacking weekend crunch is over. For others, hackathons are a way to get job interviews. Yes, there are actual headhunters lurking between the work stations.
But most importantly, hackathons are quintessential improvement opportunities. It’s not just about the prize, networking, or products. At a hackathon, you work on real world problems, create innovative ideas that can actually change people’s lives. And if you and your team work out a scalable solution in a few days, who knows what you may turn it into in a year afterwards? — If not a startup, then definitely a nice and shiny point in your portfolio. Just imagine your sheer happiness when you see a fresh bugless code that answers to someone’s needs.
What’s the same in every hackathon?
- Theoretically anyone can participate, given that they have the necessary skills
- There are some serious rewards around
- There’s free food and loot
- Developers work in teams of 2 to 8 people
- Lasts one to five days
- Presentations are very important (it’s not just about the prototype — you also need to have a good explanatory presentation)
- The judging criteria are always very similar: creativity, innovation, technical difficulty, usefulness. Sometimes they add stuff like consumer centricity of the solution.
- Excitement in the air
What’s different?
- Obviously, topics and tasks are always different. Sometimes they are kept secret till the hackathon day but most of the time topics are the decisive criteria for you when you choose where to go hacking.
- Participation is almost always free but sometimes you need to pay a registration fee. The good news is that most of them cover travel expenses. You just need to write them and ask. We recommend you do that even if they keep silent about this aspect on the websites.
- The prize pool ranges from 5,000–100,000 USD. The upper limit is unicorn-rare. The only event in the nearest future of such size is Amazon Sumerian AR/VR Challenge in 2019.
- Most hackathons are part of a conference or a summit where you can also participate in lectures and workshops, however sometimes it’s just you and your team against the problem.
As you can see, on the surface, hackathons have more similarities than differences. The latter can be tricky, though. What if you come hoping for a big reward and don’t get one because there’s only the grand prize for the winning team and everyone else should be happy with the swag? What if there are no lectures? What if you don’t have a team? What if people from other teams come prepared with a product or functional pieces of code? Well, the last problem is hard to predict but if the event is respectable and big, they usually check the participants’ github commits before the hackathon.
Let’s make a simple handcrafted decision tree to see where you can get lucky in Q4 2018.
If you want to take matters in your own hands, check out:
All of them make regular updates on hackathons worldwide. Psst, you can search for developer jobs there too.
And another thing…
Do you remember a scene from Twin Peaks where Cooper and the whole town police team are practicing the Tibetan method by throwing stones at the bottle in the woods to find out who the killer is? — Well, a hackathon is like that in that you have to work in teams and trust each other and your gut feeling even if someone’s idea seems crazy at first. And just like that, you might end up with good friends on top of your brand-new MVP.
Is there a hackathon beast inside you? Let’s see if we can intrigue you with our appetizing blockchain hackathon with professional speakers, tasty prizes, amazing people, and of course free food, loot, and damn good coffee. Just stay updated, it’s coming soon!
