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Overview

Core team

The single most important thing you need to do is to identify your core team. These are the people who will get the work done and you know you can rely on. Now, a critical part of this is ensuring that you have discrete portions that people can own. It is a fact of working with volunteers that if you say:

"Hey, can anyone help me out with the hackathon?" you will get very little response.

But, if you say "Can someone coordinate the Costco order?", you will have a much better chance of success.

Critical to this is that you must give that person autonomy. If you want to tell them how to do the job, then they are unlikely to own it, and won't be there for you year after year.

Discussion

In general you want to avoid having a case where you have dependencies that are interlocking, but there are some times it can not be avoided. This is one of them.

  1. You need to figure out the dates that you want to have the event.
  2. You have to figure out where you want to have the event.
  3. The venue will only be available on certain dates.
  4. Your hackers might not be available for all dates.
  5. Goto 1

In order to break this lockstep you should probably focus on venue first.

Where (a.k.a. Venue selection)

  • Available to be open around-the-clock from Saturday morning until Sunday evening
    • A lot of places are open to having a hackathon until the realize people will be there all night
  • Bathrooms
  • Area for hackers to work
    • Power available
    • wifi available (with all ports open)
  • Place for food storage
  • Auditorium for judging
  • Audio/Visual available for keynote/intro/judging

When (a.k.a. dates)

  1. You need to consider the availability of both your hackers and your NPOs.
  2. Depending on your hacker population, might limit their availability
  3. Repeat

Who (a.k.a. hackers)

We've tried all sorts of different audiences. The fact of the matter is there is only one audience you should directly target as your hackers:

  • College students

I could go into a lot of detail/discussion of why, but in the end, the rest of this document needs to get written, so not right now.

Given that you're targeting college students you'll want to engage with the local universities in the following ways:

  • Professors and classes that are focused on
    • Software Engineering
    • Computer Science
  • Clubs that are focused on
    • Software development
    • Diversity

Critical to this process is developing an on-going relationship. Once you get the "flywheel" moving it will help you year after year. It doesn't mean you don't have to do work, but it makes the whole hackathon easier in subsequent years.

But college students are only available during school times. So, summers are out. Spring break is out. Christmas break is out.

Additionally, if you want to maximally incentivize college students, you want people hacking at times that make it so that you (and your sponsorship partners) can offer jobs/internships in the next six to nine months.

How (a.k.a. volunteers and mentors)

Mentors and volunteers are the reason for the success of this hackathon. We simply would not be able to handle a large amount of hackers alone. Volunteers will help aid the process of the event and mentors will aid in supporting the hackers.