Hackathon Scheduling

Some key points at different points of your event

Brief Volunteers

Make your volunteers responsible for specific tasks. They should be working on something relevant at any given time during their shifts.

Event Start:

• Serve breakfast

• Welcome and brief sponsors

• Welcome and check-in attendees

• Check ID, collect liability waivers and minor forms

• Give out promotional materials (swag or credits)

• Give attendees wrist bands or name tags

Opening ceremony

Note about speakers: Your attendee’s time is valuable. Many sponsors are going to ask for speaking spots… optimize for interesting speakers rather than lucrative speakers. Invite-only API demos (developer evangelists) are another good option.

• Round up people to attend presentation

• Welcome address

  • Announcements

  • Keynote speaker

  • MLH talks

During Hacking

• Collect garbage

• Tech talk facilitator: rounding people up to listen and handling speakers (tech talks usually sponsors).

• One volunteer should be in charge of each special area or activity at the hackathon: for example, the hardware room, photo booth, etc.

• Checking in on hackers: feeding them snacks, making sure their power and WIFI are working, etc.

Hacking Deadline

• Get teams to submit what they’ve been working on to Devpost(or whatever you are using for project submissions). It’s important that every team member is registered on the platform and added to the hackathon project.

• MLH Tip: Announce a deadline that is an hour before your real deadline

• Have an organizer ask each team if they submitted their idea.

• If you have science-fair style judging, have hackers go eat lunch in a separate room while you reconfigure the hacking area for demos