How to win a hackathon

Winning an on-site hackathon requires four key ingredients:
Preparation, simplification, technical skills and Slick presentation

There are hackathons for almost everything. Hackathon winners have chances to take home prizes, hold bragging rights and can use the badge on their way to job interviews.

In a hackathon you work like crazy for 8 to 72 hours and then have 2–5 minutes to present, often being disappointed because the best technical team did not win, or the simplest idea did.

So how do you increase your chances of winning the prizes?

Rule #1 for winning a hackathon: Prepare by building your team before the event

Ideally your team of 3 to 5 people is made up of 4 roles:
- Frontend and UI/UX
- Backend/ Full Stack developer
- Business subject savvy visuals techie
- CUO (Chief Urgency Officer)

Form, storm and norm your team as early as possible before the event. Attend with your cohort or people you have worked with before. Don’t waste time on niceties.

Your CUO will keep the pressure up focusing on ideas, flow and timekeeping ….. You just cannot afford to run out of…