Rules for Hackathons

What has worked for me

Nuwan I. Senaratna

·

Follow

Published in

On Technology

·

2 min read

·

Aug 8, 2023

--

Listen

Share

Planning a #Hackathon? Here are some #rules that have worked well for me in the past. #Technology

1. Participants should have the opportunity, technical advice, and resources to work on new things; things that they don’t usually work on day to day.
2. Participants should have the opportunity to work with new people who they don’t usually work with day to day. As a result, they will have access to both new ideas and new skills. Encourage people to form diverse teams, and not just gang up with their best friends. To this end, it is usually a good idea to start a hackathon with a mixer — where everyone gets to know everyone else.
3. Participants should be free to build whatever they want. At the same time, a “theme” might help narrow down ideas, particularly for people who have too many ideas.
4. Participation is more important than achievement. Because in hackathons it is participation that drives achievement.
5. Prizes are good, but not to the extent that the Hackathon becomes too competitive. Hackathons are more about collaboration, than competition. Also, judging a good hackathon, with many good ideas, is usually both difficult and pointless. A successful hackathon is the ultimate win-win event. The better the hackathon the more winners.
6. Allow people to break a few rules. Creativity needs freedom.
7. Hackathons are about building real things: Real code, Real Apps, Real systems. They may not be perfect, but they must be “done”. A business-case or PowerPoint-deck hackathons don’t make. Hackathons are for makers; not tawkers.
8. Everyone must share what they build. However ugly or incomplete. Presenting projects in this way should not be restricted to the “best” projects; because there is no best, and everyone who builds is a winner.
9. Create a path for turning hackathon projects into actual products or even companies. But don’t be too obsessed by this — and don’t make it the “principle aim” of the hackathon. The worst thing that can happen is for the hackathon to end at the hackathon.
10. Hackathons should not be one-off events. They are organisms that should be allowed to evolve and grow. And as the Hackathon grows, a community of builders and organizers grows and matures with it.