Building a Better Hackathon: Guide to Hosting a Successful AI Codefest

Learn how to run an extended hackathon that’s informational, fun, and impactful for your organization.

People participating in an AI focused hackathon. Image by author and Dalle-3.

Overview

The pace of innovation in AI is astounding. Keeping up with all these changes while ensuring employees have hands on experience applying emerging technology can be challenging. This is where the power of a well-organized hackathon shines. At Neudesic, we’ve been refining the art of hosting engaging and impactful AI hackathons, and thought we’d share our framework to help you do the same!

Planning Your Hackathon: A Step-by-Step Guide

1. Define Hackathon Goals (4 weeks out): Clearly define what you aim to solve, who the desired participants are, and what the goals for the hackathon are. Our aim was for all employees to feel encouraged and supported in signing up, fostering an inclusive environment where teams of all skill levels could tackle some of the most challenging AI problems. This approach was designed to deepen the entire organization’s understanding of emerging AI technologies.
2. Identify Core Topic Challenges (4 weeks out): Start by identifying pressing technology challenges relevant to your industry and client demand. For example, in our latest hackathon we focused on multimodality and enhancing understanding of unstructured data. We had topics around video, audio, table, infographic, and image data, as well as knowledge graphs and long document summaries. A challenge combined with a scope fosters creativity and ensures projects generate value for participants and the organization.
3. Determine Schedule and Milestones (3 weeks out): Create a timeline that includes regular check-ins and milestones to keep teams on track. For our hackathon, we had a three-week sign-up period, which included two weeks of education sessions (3–4 one hour sessions each week recorded for later viewing), and a three-week hackathon. Teams needed to submit their topics by the end of the first week, and had the remaining time to build out their solution. This extended period allows teams to upskill effectively and deliver valuable projects while managing their regular job responsibilities.
4. Establish Judging and Criteria (3 weeks out): Establish clear judging criteria and select knowledgeable judges to ensure fairness and inspire confidence in the outcomes. Transparency about what judges are looking for and clear definitions of deliverables can guide teams toward success.
5. Establish Communication Channels & Send out Sign-Ups (3 weeks out): Announce the event and the supporting touchpoints/resources leading up to the event well in advance and maintain regular communication to build excitement. Establishing a Hackathon Community on Teams, Slack, or Viva before the event and posting regular updates can significantly boost sign-ups. Encouraging organizational leaders to promote participation can also increase engagement.
6. Host Education Sessions before Hackathon Kickoff (2 weeks out): Prior to the start of the hackathon, hold education sessions to get people excited and informed about the topics and key tools they’ll need. We made complex topics approachable by breaking down cutting-edge technologies and sharing useful datasets and guides across a variety of info sessions in the weeks leading up to the event. Opening these sessions to the company during hackathon sign-ups helped encourage people to get excited and feel prepared to tackle new challenges.
7. Simplify Access to AI Tools (2 weeks out): Before the hackathon starts, set up the appropriate resources and ensure all participants have access to the tools. By setting up an “AI Landing Zone”, we minimized logistical hurdles, allowing participants to focus on innovating with the models and environments provided.
8. Close Sign-Ups and Form Teams (3 days out): Allow participants to form their own teams and sign up together, or allow them to sign up as a free agent! Give the hackathon committee a couple days to form teams of balanced and diverse skills. We recommend closing sign ups on a Thursday so the committee can form teams Thursday/Friday and announce them later on Friday or early Monday. Then have the hackathon kickoff scheduled for one day after the teams are announced, in our case this was on Tuesday during our AI Community meeting!
9. Kick off your hackathon and stick to your schedule (0 days out): Let the fun begin! Host an AI Community meeting for the official start, get teams excited, and provide another opportunity for participants to ask questions.

Supporting Participants during the Hackathons

1. Create an AI Community for Continuous Support: Keep the excitement up throughout the duration of the hackathon by maintaining a community where people can ask questions and collaborate. This facilitates collaboration and continuous learning across teams, even for those who selected different topics. In our AI Community we share best practices, and made all the team submissions available so everyone could learn from each other’s experience.
2. Have teams write white papers: We’ve found that by requiring the teams to detail the problems they’re solving, describing their customers’ problems, technical challenges, and documenting their approach as a white paper helps teams align and focus on the right problems. Not only does it improve the pitches, but it also helps us generate blogs and other content related to the hackathon after the event.

Check out some of our recent hackathon projects:

• Identifying Patterns in a Sea of Video Data
• AI-Powered Simulations: Revolutionizing the Hiring Process
• Simplifying Stock Trading: An AI-Driven Approach to Overcoming Information Overload
• Rethinking RFPs: How AI Can Streamline and Optimize the Proposal Response Process

Celebrate ‌Success

Don’t forget to provide many opportunities for teams to share their projects. Encourage presentations and collaboration in the AI Community so people can evolve their projects and continue growing after the hackathon.

Conclusion

Whether you’re aiming to spark innovation, foster team-building, or simply keep your team updated on AI advancements, hosting a hackathon can be a transformative experience for your organization. By following this guide, you’ll be well on your way to planning an event that’s both educational and exhilarating.

Interested in more insights? Stay tuned for our upcoming posts, where we’ll dive deeper into the specifics of our hackathon challenges and explore the outstanding projects that emerged.

Interested in discussing further or collaborating? Reach out on LinkedIn!