How VandyHacks Virtually Formed Teams for Their Hackathon

VandyHacks is Vanderbilt’s student-run hackathon with participants joining from all over the country to collaborate on creating innovative and meaningful projects over the course of 36 hours. Their annual hackathon normally takes place in the fall, but this year they held a summer edition on July 10th-12th with over 800 applicants. The event included educational workshops, lightning talks, and tons of fun events like a virtual Zumba class and lemon bar making. In order to bring such a large group of people together for a successful virtual event, VandyHacks used Glimpse.

Glimpse is the best way to virtually engage communities in a meaningful way. Glimpse allows people in a virtual room to connect one-on-one for timed conversations, complete with fun icebreaker prompts and mini-games.

VandyHacks was able to use Glimpse to facilitate the team formation process, with participants meeting and talking to each other face-to-face on Glimpse!

“We thought that Glimpse fit in great with virtual hackathons. The quick, rapid-fire format was particularly fitting for a hackathon,” said Gabriel Ting, Co-President of VandyHacks. “We also liked how easy it was to set up and use. We didn’t have to manually manage rooms for participants.”

If you are planning a virtual hackathon or a virtual conference, here are our tips and tricks for using Glimpse:

• Check out our Hosting Guide for general advice on how to get started!
• Decide on a match time length (the default is 2 minutes) that best suits your event
• Customize the question prompts to personalize your event
• End your welcome/kick-off event with a Glimpse room to help participants meet each other and get excited about the event