Suhail Ameen

A hackathon can be the wind in the sails of your business. Regardless of your industry, conducting a hackathon is an excellent way to generate new ideas and encourage innovative thinking.

At HackerEarth, we’ve conducted over 2,000 hackathons for enterprises, startups, non-profits, universities, and more. Over the years, we’ve been asked for tips on organizing hackathons—and we’ve gathered some key insights along the way.

Organizations can run internal hackathons with employees around specific challenges. These collaborative events can lead to innovative products, workplace improvements, and continuous productivity.

Hackathons are also widely organized for external communities, bringing in fresh ideas and new perspectives. The first event titled a "hackathon" took place in 1999 during the OpenBSD event in Calgary. These events often serve as powerful methods of crowdsourcing innovation. One famous example is GroupMe, which didn’t win the TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon, yet later sold to Skype for $85 million.

Whether internal or external, a successful hackathon can drive brand recognition and innovation.

Top 10 Things to Keep in Mind Before Conducting a Hackathon

1. Define the agenda and outcome

Why do you want to organize a hackathon? What is the desired result? Who is the target audience? Whether the goal is innovation, branding, or recruiting, having clarity helps define success metrics.

2. Allocate a budget

Budget planning is essential. Determine how much funding is required and whether it will come from internal sources or sponsors.

3. Define the name, timeline, and themes

The hackathon name should be relatable and community-centric. Avoid naming it directly after your organization. Choose themes that will excite the target developer demographic. Avoid holidays and provide clear timelines.

4. Plan and promote in advance

Set aside 4–8 weeks for planning. Collaborate with influencers, use social media, and consider paid ads. Sponsors can assist with cross-promotions.

5. Arrange venue and sponsors

Secure a venue with enough space, strong Wi-Fi, plenty of power outlets, and rest areas. Offer tiered sponsorship packages with branding or API exposure. Major expenses include venue, food, and prizes—sponsors can offset these costs.

6. List rules and FAQs

Clearly state all rules and FAQs on the hackathon page. Include information on judging criteria, IP rights, and reimbursements to maintain transparency.

7. Prizes and rewards

Prizes motivate participants. The value depends on problem complexity and audience. Offer special prizes for Best UI, Presentation, or Lone Hacker. Don’t forget participation goodies!

8. Bon appétit

Hungry hackers are unhappy hackers. Provide good, sufficient food. It’s better to over-order than under-serve.

9. Ensure communication and connect

Create a collaborative atmosphere. Facilitate networking between hackers, sponsors, and mentors. This openness encourages innovation and idea exchange.

10. Judges and judging

Build a judging panel of credible industry experts. Their feedback and visibility can encourage participation and validate the effort of hackers.

After the event, showcase the top projects online. Share photos, thank sponsors and attendees, and highlight all innovative efforts, not just the winners.

Hackathons are inclusive platforms for creativity and collaboration. Ideas like GroupMe, Flutter, Zaarly, and Facebook’s News Feed were born at hackathons.

If you’re not ready to host one, consider sponsoring. Either way, you’ll gain valuable insights and become part of something inspiring.

Download our Hackathon Guide to learn more.

Music is the universal language of mankind—a great uniter. It’s astonishing how music can connect souls, overcome barriers, and bring people closer. It is something that people who differ on anything and everything can have in common.

The World Music Hackathon is a festival of music, innovation, and creativity. We are pushing down the boundaries between “hacking” and “music” to bring the music and tech world together. There are no limits to what you can create; we encourage hacking of music in the broadest conceivable sense, for example, through instrument-building, data visualization, collaboration, improvisation, or any other way you can imagine.

There are craftsmen, researchers, and other music programmers who are doing great work in the field of music, however, they are not getting the consideration they merit for whatever reason.

This is your platform to change the future of the underserved music community and is by no means is limited to young and old, regional or cultural genres or gender identity. It is a platform that can induce diversity across backgrounds, perspectives, and abilities to drive personal growth through creation, collaboration, and communication.

Music is becoming more digital every day. What's more, the World Music Hackathon is the phase to explore different avenues regarding its progression and create thoughts for the future of music and music groups.

Your ideas can connect the artist with his or her audience, on- and offline, real-time or over time. Your ideas will interface the path in rethinking and re-engineering music for the digital age.

Here are the primary focus areas:

• Enabling music for the disabled: For people with disabilities, technology has the potential to unlock new possibilities. Technology can enable communication, navigation, and independence of disabled people while learning and creating music.
• Anti-piracy: According to Woolley, about 12.5 billion dollars are lost due to file sharing and music piracy, and 5 billion of that is profits lost from the music industry directly every year. Innovative technology can minimize and discourage music piracy.
• Improving music recommendations: With the advent of technology, the glory of Radio DJs has passed, replacing musical gatekeepers with personalized algorithms and unlimited streaming services. With listeners now interested in a very diverse genre of music, content recommendation is at the heart of most subscription-based streaming platforms to enhance user experience and increase user engagement.
• Ease of learning and playing music: New innovations provide fun and creative ways to enhance the learning experience. Apps and online tools can ease the more unsavory aspects of learning an instrument through gamification and progress tracking which help the learner stay motivated.
• Innovate (reengineering music for the digital age): Innovate solutions that can make a difference in the world of music. You are only limited by your own imagination of what you can create.

We wish to bring together creative developer, designers, musicians, and product visionaries to test ideas and create products with the potential to change the world of music. There’s a lot that can be done here, so let’s unpack those beautiful ideas.Also, in addition to being good for humanity, this also helps foster innovation.