Developing the Program
Someone has to decide what happens.
Specifying topic tracks
Wow, you've reached so far! Now, when you are clear with your hackathon's purpose, you defined your theme, found the venue, and started working with potential partners, it is time to bring all of these together and create a content for your event!
It is a good idea to start with #rightproblem and #breakitdown: what specifically do you want to achieve with your hackathon, and what outcomes do you expect to have for yourselves and your participants? Are you sure that what you are planning now indeed aligns with your purpose?
We should be honest with you here: due to the situation with COVID-19 pandemics we haven't really reached complete implementation of this and further steps. But here is how we approached it!
The theme that we chose for our hackathon was Utopia and Dystopia. We wanted our participants to be able to influence the future of society through evoking the creative ideas and filling the knowledge gap that prevents from their implementation. And as an outcome we wanted our participants to prototype the creation that will help to reach the specific version of the future. All of these combined together into the idea that we had for our topic tracks: under two possible versions of the future - Utopian and Dystopian - we speculated a one sentence scenarios that the participants should have implemented with their deliverables.
Utopia track
Dystopia track
People reduced the amount of air transportation by 25%.
People reduced the amount of water consumption by 60%.
Money disappeared as a concept.
How did it happen?
The world is divided into three parts, each of which has a powerful dictator.
The amount of land available for human’s living decreased by 50%.
The sunlight stopped reaching the land.
How to prevent it?
It looks quite simple, right? But it creates a room for generating tons of interesting ideas! Also, it makes our hackathon idea unique - who else have directed their participants in such an interesting way?! [1]
So, be creative in your ideas, try to bring a unique value to your hackathon through the topics, but don't forget to align to your #purpose!
Creating the entertainment program
A hackathon is a place not only to develop your technical skills, but it is a place to have a fun weekend while meeting new people. Thus, every hackathon needs an entertainment program to give some time for hackers to relax and enjoy their time at the event.
For this part of the organization, you can use all your creativity to build a memorable event for everyone!
But first of all, you should decide how many fun sessions you want to include in your planning. Having too many will not leave enough time for other events, and having too few would make your hackathon mundane. We suggest having 3 entertainment sessions per full day of the hackathon.
You should also take into account the additional expenses which will come with other events at your hackathon. Thus, plan early on what you would like to see at your programming and reach out to companies that could potentially sponsor those expenses. For example, you think it would be a great idea to hold a silent disco, but realize that it will cost almost the same as running the hackathon. So, you should start looking for companies in the Bay Area who can equip you with devices for a silent disco. Pro tip: there is quite often a silent disco party in the Salesforce Park; so, going in person to them and speaking to the organizer can lead you in the right direction towards reaching your goal.
However, if you don't get additional sponsorship, don't get sad! We are Minervans, so we know how to use #heuristics to find easy and fast solutions for our problems. Look at the available sources within Minerva and use effectively resources provided by Minerva. We suggest you incorporate Student Initiatives into this section of the planning. For example, BTL can hold an art therapy session and create an atmosphere of relaxation for hackers.
Also, don't forget about the talent within the Minerva community! Ask your classmates to hold some sessions during the hackathon, depending on their preferences. There are people doing yoga every day who could hold an early morning yoga session to boost the energy levels of the hackers. Another simple idea could be holding a speed-dating activity with pre-written questions to help hackers socialize during the event.
For more ideas, you can always reach out to the SXP team and ask for their help with the run of the show!
Designing the workshops
Every student hackathon has one key aspect: it is designed for students, and students might not know something fundamental. That is why the educational part of your hackathon is an important component of your program that will impact how successfully you achieved your goal.
In his Fall Individual Research Paper, Nikita studied how different hackathons developed their workshop curriculums.
The results have shown that most hackathons focus their workshop curriculum at two aspects: emphasizing the uniqueness and adjusting to the sponsors. Therefore, it is a good idea to start planning your workshops when you already have a general idea for your program and after you've started negotiating with the sponsors. For more detailed analysis of the workshops in different hackathons you can refer to Nikita's Fall Research Paper.
HC footnotes:
[1] #rightproblem: We faced the problem of choosing the theme for our hackathon, that should have been chosen to carry out a specific meaning for M23 community, be unique, and guide our hackathon preparation and running (the aspects of our problem). Our choice of Utopia and Dystopia theme arose from our AH50 unit on analyzing Utopia. As a result, our theme guided the style of our documentation, web-site, and suggested hackathon contents.
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