What is a Hackathon?

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What is a hackathon?

A hackathon is an innovation competition where people come together to build products that solve challenges. They typically take place over the course of a weekend, but can be either longer or shorter and run any time of the week.

The name hackathon comes from the words hack (a term used in the software community that means building novel solutions to challenges), and marathon (which is a long-distance running race that harkens back to Greece).

Hackathons can take many forms and there isn’t one set formula. But, there are commonalities that many share in how they’re structured and run. For instance, there’s typically a topic area that is the focus of the hackathon and a set of challenges and tools, such as APIs or hardware, made available to the participants. In terms of agenda, the run of events usually goes something like this:
- The participants gather.
- Those with ideas for solutions to the challenge pitch their ideas to their fellow hackers, and mention the types of skills they they’re looking for to form a team, and try to recruit folks to their team.
- Everyone breaks into teams and gets hacking.
- Often expert mentors come through to provide guidance and support.
- At the end the teams demo their creations to their peers and a panel of judges.
- Winners are selected and awards distributed.
- All the while, copious amounts of caffeine are consumed, with invariably at least a few teams that hack straight through the night or sleep on site.

A common misconception is that a hackathon can only be a software development competition. While these are certainly the most common, hackathons can also center around hardware or even the creation of new services, processes, and workflows. And, plenty are agnostic about the means by which the challenges laid out are solved.

For instance, let’s look at an example of a hackathon. The photos you were looking at were taken by me at a hackathon I ran back in late 2016 in Brooklyn, NY with my colleagues at MD5, the Department of Defense’s technology accelerator. In this particular hackathon, we were interested in finding new ways to save people impacted by disasters around the world and manage the most effective relief response possible. With the topic of Humanitarian Assistance & Disaster Relief in Dense Urban Environments selected, we worked with our friends at organizations like the FDNY, Columbia University, NYU, the US Army’s Strategic Studies Group, and New Lab to craft a set of real-world challenges to solve.

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Me and my team just won Finnish hackathon last Friday🎉 and it was 5 days from 8am to 4pm 😊

wonderboy

Thank you, this video helped me learned about hackathons. Trying to learn how to code in python

JoshuaVeee

thanks i definitely needed this...i keep hearing this over and over

innocentboi

Thanks for this! I'm looking to create a hackathon experience for global ministry leaders who will be gathering in Denver this summer to discuss the best ways to resource ministry leaders all over the in Gospel Advancing ministry so that they raise up a generation of young people who will reach their friends with the Gospel.
PS - my dad served in the US Army for 30+ years.

JasonGLamb