There are many concepts popular in the current corporate world. But one of the most popular one is the concept of hackathon. In the beginning, the word Hackathon emerged from the word Marathon. It is a long or challenging activity in a short period. And talking about Hack, here meant as exploratory programming.
Well, during a period of Hackathon, you spend a short period of time. It is generally between twenty four to forty eight hours and can Stretch up to a week. In this event you do creating and delivering a product. The idea behind this concept is to collaboratively code in a wonderful manner and it starts from scratch and end with a working prototype. It is often a type of competition wherein teams of programmers, designers, developers and project managers come together to design & form a good product, a software project. Of course, you can also use Hackathon software for conducting this event of hackathon online.
Originally, it was started in the open source community and in the contemporary era it is absolutely common among programmers. You can easily discover all sorts of Hackathons, some are specifically intended for educational matters, other for social, and even others are basically to form software. Quite often, businesses use it as an opportunity to get creative ideas by their staff members , some type of prototype that is going to be low cost at the end of the day.
During these events individuals gather to face different real life issues. You might find Hackathons that have a topic or theme assigned and you have other ones wherein there are no specific themes and you therefore pitch ideas and form on that. It is certainly a wonderful opportunity to put together a huge number of people to address all together a same issue and watch how ideas and outcomes flow.
A quick glance at its structure
It generally all starts with an introduction related to the event like they tell about the topic or theme of the event. Afterwards there is a platform wherein participants will pitch their ideas and what they have to come up with. As said before, a Hackathon could be of 24h but it can stretch up to a week. So certainly for shorter Hackathons there is much more pressure. Adding to this competition, you can swiftly remember the exams periods at university. Of course, you can have a great learning and interaction experience in a hackathon.
Once the tasks are done the teams gathered therein would show their projects to others. sometimes there are also instances when there can be a jury that is going to be looking at the demos of products and shall be in charge of picking a winner team that will get a reward and award. Of course, it is a blend of learning, interacting and if you were too good then you might get that award or prize too.
How can you conduct a hackathon?
Well, if you are planning to conduct a hackathon then you have to decide which type of event you want it to be. Do you want it online or offline? What is the goal and how extensively you are going to have it? All these things will make sure that you conduct the hackathon in the most effective manner. If you are conducting the hackathon online then you have to be careful about the software, the mikes and everything. Of course, it would depend on your own setup and needs. The infrastructure and the overall interface thing have to be really good. The technicians have to be on their toes throughout the event so as to ensure that everything happens with ease and agility.
Offline hackathons
Talking about offline hackathons there too you have to do arrangements as per your needs and comfort.
Choose the venue
Firstly, since you are hosting a hackathon you have to pick a good venue. Make sure that the venue encompasses everyone comfortably and there is no peskiness. The venue would determine the base of your event. If it’s not accessible, effective and smooth; the entire event might go for a toss.
Do the registration
You would not want to find that you got a crowd of double figure when you were expecting half of it. The point is you have to do proper registration on first come first basis. It is to ensure that you have a number in mind and you make arrangements accordingly.
What would be the judging criteria?
Do you have any plans about the judging criteria? You have to note it all in prior to the event. You have to make sure that you have all the things in mind or otherwise things can turn out to be topsy-turvy. Then you have to decide the panel of the guests too. Yes, you have to decide who would be in the panel and how many judges you would have. Are they going to be from different industry or what? All these things have to be decided much prior to the event and the judges have to be present on the days of event.
Make arrangements of Snacks and drinks
You have to make arrangement of all the snacks and drinks throughout the event. You cannot expect your guests to take care of their own needs. Make sure that you have talked to some caterers well in advance.
Equipment
Make sure that you have all the needed equipment with you. There is no point of getting embarrassed later on. Also make sure that all the machines are in working order and there is nothing that is out of order.
You have to make it work smoothly
It is your duty to ensure that the tasks go smoothly. You have to make sure that all the tasks are on time, there is discipline and quality in all the actions.
Thus, once you do all these things, you know how to conduct hackathon!