With the rise of the digital age, technological challenges are growing more complex. One way to meet them head-on is through hackathons. A hackathon can be a breeding ground and an incubator for new product ideas and creative solutions, and hosting them regularly can help create an innovative mindset in your organization. Whether you’re an experienced event organizer or a novice looking to bring your first hackathon to life, understanding the intricacies of planning and executing such a distinct event is crucial. This guide will introduce you toa complete guide on how to organize a hackathon, from benefits to stakeholders and the essential steps, ensuring that your event not only meets but exceeds expectations.
What is a hackathon?
A hackathon is an event that (usually) runs for 24 to 48 hours. Software developers, creatives and strategists work in teams to solve a complicated problem, to develop a new feature, or design a new product.
There are two main types of hackathons: internal, and external. Internal events are limited to a company’s employees. External events have your employees as well as other industry experts, partner companies, and potential talents. By allowing external talent into the fold, you significantly expand the knowledge base and technical capacity available, leading to an increased chance of innovation and success.
Hackathons can be organized in two primary formats: online and offline. Online hackathons leverage digital platforms to bring participants together, regardless of their geographical location. This format is highly flexible, allowing individuals to collaborate from the comfort of their homes or offices. On the other hand, offline hackathons offer a more traditional, in-person experience. Participants gather in a single location, which fosters a vibrant and dynamic environment, encouraging spontaneous brainstorming and networking.
Why should you organize a hackathon?
The answer is simple: hackathons bring a plethora of benefits to your company! They drive innovation by sparking creative solutions to complex problems, often leading to breakthrough ideas. If your company has a digital product, hackathons are also a perfect platform for participants to experience it firsthand, resulting in valuable feedback, users and applications. No less important, the occasion is a prime opportunity for recruitment, allowing you to connect with top talents within the industry in a dynamic, hands-on environment. Hackathons also enhance developer relations, fostering strong bonds between your brand and the community.
How to run a hackathon?
Step 1: Define hackathon goals & objectives
The first step in organizing a successful hackathon is to define your goals and objectives.
Start by determining the primary purpose of the hackathon, whether it’s fostering innovation, building community, acquiring talent, or increasing brand awareness. Next, identify the specific problems you want participants to solve and the outcomes you expect. Establish concrete metrics to measure these outcomes, such as the number of participants and projects, or the quality of solutions and social impact.
Step 2: Set out the details of organize a hackathon
Theme and Challenge Statement: Start by choosing a theme that aligns with the specific goal that your company wants to achieve, be it adopting new technologies, incubating new applications, or solving societal issues. Create a clear narrative to guide event branding, marketing, and discussions. Furthermore, formulate achievable challenge statements that cater to diverse skill levels and areas of expertise.
Need some inspiration? Discover the hackathon themes of these global companies:
- IBM’s Master the Mainframe: learning through competition and gamification.
- Polkadot’s dotSocial: community building and knowledge dissemination.
- P&G: solving social challenges, one at a time.
Target Audience: Define the demographic that will be interested in your hackathon’s themes and benefits. For example, for students, the focus can be on educational challenges and mentorship. Similarly, for developers, the hackathon can center around in-demand technologies.
Guidelines: Establish clear rules and guidelines to ensure a fairly organized hackathon. This consists of key deliverables, judging criteria, and intellectual property terms. A code of conduct detailing acceptable behavior, harassment policies, and technical standards is also needed to maintain a respectful competing environment.
Event Format: Choose the format that best aligns with your goals. In-person events have better networking opportunities but require more budgeting resources. On the other hand, organizing virtual hackathons are more accessible and cost-effective but may face collaboration challenges. Alternatively, a hybrid format combines both benefits but needs careful planning and execution.
Prizes and Incentives: Rewards come in various forms: money, merchandise, opportunities, or exposure. These prizes can be divided into different categories to attract a diverse range of participants.
Budget: Estimate the total costs you will need for the venue (or platform if organized online), supplies, technology, marketing, prizes, and staff. You can seek funding from partners, sponsors, ticket sales, or fundraising campaigns. Lastly, don’t forget a contingency plan for unexpected expenses to smooth out any operational risks.
Step 3: Plan and prepare to organize a hackathon
Plan Schedule and Activities: It’s crucial to how to plan a hackathon with detailed schedule. It should begin with an engaging opening ceremony, followed by workshops, coding sessions, networking events, and conclude with a closing ceremony. For virtual or hybrid formats, remember to integrate online presentation and collaboration tools. By offering a variety of activities, you ensure that hackathon participants have a meaningful and enriching experience.
Create Promotional Materials: Start by developing a unique logo, color scheme, and tagline for your hackathon. Use these elements to create social media graphics, flyers, and email templates to spread the word through various channels. A comprehensive, mobile-friendly website to clearly communicate hackathon details is also a must.
Explore Partnerships and Sponsorships: Seek organizations with relevant resources that share your goals. You can reach out to them to partner up using benefits such as branding, networking, or database access. These partnerships also provide additional resources and guidance, enriching the experience for hackathon participants. This creates a win-win solution for all parties involved.
Find Judges and Mentors: Well-prepared judges and mentors significantly enhance project quality and the overall participant experience. Contact experts with relevant experience in your chosen theme or challenge areas, and provide them with clear judging criteria and guidelines for evaluating projects. In terms of mentors, they should be ready to give constructive feedback and support to participating teams.
Set Up Registration: You should outline clear eligibility criteria and application deadlines for the hackathon. Early-bird discounts or incentives are great methods to gauge interest and encourage early registration. These steps help build momentum and ensure you attract the right participants.
Prepare for Logistics: Thorough logistical planning is crucial for both virtual and in-person hackathons. For virtual events, you should select reliable platforms for communication and collaboration, with backup plans for potential technical issues. It is more complex for offline events: venue, infrastructure, decoration catering, security, supplies and more need to be accounted for thoroughly beforehand.
Step 4: Promote your hackathon
Like any event, you need to build anticipation. And if you want to attract third parties – from government agencies to other software companies – who might be interested in the result of your hackathon and willing to contribute resources – make sure to start promoting well in advance!
For participants, you can use social media, advertisements, email marketing, and even cold-calling techniques to market your hackathon. A pro tip: utilizing AngelHack’s global network of over 300,000+ developers, might be one of the best and quickest ways to do it.
Step 5: On the hackathon day
Final preparations: As the hackathon day approaches, make sure to communicate all the important details with participants. Send out schedules, rules, and logistical info, and provide contact details for any questions they might have. Keep the excitement alive with regular updates. For in-person events, double-check the setup and confirm all arrangements. If it’s a virtual event, test all the tech and platforms to avoid any glitches.
D-Day: Throughout the big day, it is vital to follow the predetermined schedule and to enable an environment that lets creative juices flow freely. Make sure that resources are always available, and offer encouragement when needed. Organizers, mentors and judges should be constantly active to provide the much-needed guidance and support for participants. However, you have to be strict about the time and constantly keep reminding the participants about the time left.
Step 6: Follow up
Congratulations! You’ve made it through your hackathon, but the work doesn’t end here. It’s crucial to follow up with everyone involved. Start by gathering feedback from all participants to assess the event’s success and identify areas for improvement. Send personalized thank-you notes to sponsors, speakers, mentors, and volunteers to show your appreciation. Summarize the event in a post-event report, highlighting participant numbers, project outcomes, and media coverage. Email everyone to thank them for their participation, inform them about the next hackathon, and update them on the stage of the winning solution, whether it’s in localization testing or implementation. This ensures continued engagement and helps in planning future events.
Tips from the expert
Having organized 500+ hackathons since 2011, our team at AngelHack, leading hackathon organizer wants to share a few tips that have been tremendously helpful in ensuring a hackathon’s success.
- Hold training sessions for participants: Pre-event workshops or webinars are a must in getting participants familiar with tools and challenges, which boost their productivity and confidence.
- Don’t do it alone: Hosting a hackathon takes months of preparation, which can take a toll on your already busy team. Collaborate with sponsors and other organizations to make full use of the extra resources, not to mention the mentorship and networking opportunities!
- Contact judges beforehand: The schedules of industry experts are always jam-packed. If you want someone specific – make the contact right the moment you nail down the hackathon details!
- Estimate resources and staffing: Make sure to carefully, and realistically, assess participant numbers, venue needs, and staff requirements. A little prep goes a long way in avoiding last-minute chaos!
Final words
Now that we have covered the A to Z of hackathon organization, hopefully, you are excited to start one of your own! And to make things even easier for you, we have compacted all the essential knowledge, steps and details into one checklist that you can download and refer back to anytime.
And if you need any advice or support in making your event a smashing success, see what AngelHack has to offer and book a consultation session right away!
