Discovering the best hackathons in Tokyo
The hackathon culture in Tokyo has been developing over the past few years, and entrepreneurs have now various choices every week-end if they want to brainstorm and find their next startup idea or future co-founders. Though most of them are held in Japanese, the growing English-only hackers community still have a few options available.
Here is a quick tour of the prominent Tokyo hackathons, and what to expect from each of them.
Startup Weekend Tokyo
If there was only one to keep in mind, that would be it. With one hackathon organized almost every other week-end and a dynamic community, the Google-backed organization is without a doubt the most active one.
Now brush up your 日本語, because you’ll need it. Events are facilitated in Japanese only, and average 80 participants. For those not familiar with SW, it’s probably one of the least tech-oriented hackathons, and focus is often put on business plan and idea validation. That said, if you follow the advice from Taras, one of our alumni, having a prototype goes a long way towards winning the big prize:
There used to be an “international” group for SW in Tokyo, but it is sadly on idle, with no upcoming event in sight at the moment.
Junction Tokyo Hackathon
While Startup Weekend organizes frequent, large-size events, Junction itself is the biggest once-per-year hackathon in Tokyo, boasting 200 participants from all over the world. Usually organized around the same time as Slush Tokyo, it offers several tracks gravitating around current trends, from blockchain to AI. Each track is sponsored by a large company, and the big prize is nothing less than a trip to Finland for Junction main event.
We had a chance to sit down with Salman, one of our Le Wagon Tokyo alumni and winner of the AI track (and big prize!) with his team aiSHO, to discover a bit about the Junction experience:
“We had a very international team of five people: one person doing branding, one working on UX and three developers. In the end I think this diversity of skills and backgrounds was what helped us win. A lot of the teams were developers only, and were lacking a bit of product-oriented mindset. The AI track we picked was sponsored by Cogent Labs, and we ended up winning the AI track (250,000¥) and the grand prize with our product, aiSHO. It’s basically a visual translation tool: you point your phone camera at an object, and you get the name of that object in Japanese — I was personally working on the library features that stores all your past searches. Overall, being in a room with 200 like-minded people for 48 hours was an amazing experience, I strongly recommend it. You don’t need to be a perfect developer or designer, you learn by doing.”
AngelHack Tokyo
If you’re reading this article on its publishing date, then it’s still time to register for AngelHack! The second Tokyo edition of this world-famous hackathon will happen on May 19–20th, and 100 developers are expected to participate.
AngelHack might be considered more “technical” compared to SW and Junction, and coding experience definitely helps. Two particularities:
- The global AngelHack proposes a virtual acceleration program, and the winning team lands a spot in it.
- They offer a special “Code for a Cause” award, which is a special challenge aiming at solving social or environmental problems.
Last but not least, for the most hardcore hackers, AngelHack also happens in Osaka on a different week-end — This may be worth a trip from Tokyo.
Longhash Hackathon
This is a bit of a newcomer in the Tokyo hackathon scene, and considering the hype around blockchain it promises to be a large event. Organized by Longhash accelerator and entirely free for participants, all the prototypes produced during that week-end will be expected to leverage on… blockchain.
The first edition is coming very soon (April 20th to 22nd), and registration closes on April 8th. Good news: registration seems to be free!
And more!
These are the hackathons that make the most “noise”, especially in the international tech communities, but if you master Japanese, there is a long list of smaller ones that you’ll be able to join.
How to find them? Check out the events registration sites:
If you think we forgot some, don’t hesitate to ping us!
