Three Tips Companies Should Know About Planning A Hackathon

Hackathons have taken the world by storm. They are considered by many as the grounds wherein exceptional skills are developed and put to the test in high-pressure situations. Hackathons are where excellence is forged, and intelligent solutions are created. 

By bringing people together to harness the many benefits of bleeding-edge technology, these events act as incubators for a future of unlimited possibilities and free-flowing evolution. From issues such as social change and global warming to racism and sustainability, the array of solutions that hackathons seek to solve through collaboration and creative thinking is nearly endless. 

With the world facing many challenges that can no longer be overcome by doing everything by the book, hackathons provide the opportunity to devise solutions that can make a difference to humankind. Fortunately, these events can be planned by any company or association looking to solve their issues with creative insight and effective planning. In fact, putting a hackathon together isn’t as difficult as you may think.

The Basics of Planning A Successful Hackathon

Hackathons are events that serve as catalysts for widespread change in serious degrees, and putting one together isn’t nearly as much of a challenge as the issues they seek to solve. 

When planning a successful event, you need to create the right atmosphere for solution creation and make everything enjoyable for participants and attendees alike. For all your hackathon planning needs, we’ve put together this list of helpful tips and key points that you can use for the best results: 

Tip #1: Announce Your Event Several Weeks in Advance 

Here’s one mistake many aspiring organizers make when putting hackathons together: they announce their events too late. And unfortunately, this can spark problems in terms of attendance early on.

It’s critical to announce your event early because potential participants need to clear their schedules. By announcing your event at least six weeks in advance, you’ll make it easier for interested teams to prepare for the contest and increase community engagement ahead of time! 

Tip #2: Utilize Hackathon-Specific Tools

If you want everything to go smoothly before, during, and after your event, it’s ideal to use hackathon-specific tools. This way, all participants can work as effectively and efficiently as they’d like.

While it’s helpful to use general video conferencing and group-chat platforms for a hackathon, it will be a more productive experience for your participants if you use purpose-specific tools. Through the help of the right tools, such as those offered in Hackathon.com’’s corporate services, you can ensure that everything will run smoothly from the first point of contact to critical post-event communications.

Tip #3: Assign a Specific Theme 

Want to know the fastest way to muddle up your event and throw all semblance of meaningfulness and precise solutions out of the window? Here’s the answer: running an open-ended event with no theme.

Oftentimes, open-ended hackathons can make way for all sorts of complications in judging and solution creation. If participants are free to interpret scopes and guidelines as they see fit, the end result may not be helpful to your organization at all. The truth is that you need specific reference points that can be used to facilitate your intended outcome.

When you take the time to build your event around a concrete, well-established theme, you will create the necessary conditions for faster results and focused thinking. Limiting the scope can be especially helpful for participants because they will have a greater awareness of the processes you expect them to follow.

Hackathons provide opportunities to generate solutions with the help of innovative minds and invaluable problem-solving skills. Through the use of the critical tips mentioned above, you’ll be able to plan a productive event. You can keep your participants happy and engaged, and your organization will benefit from their forward-thinking ideas!

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