Timeline: 5 months to post-event
Come up with event concept and assemble team of organizers within your agency. Your first tasks are to identify the goals of the hackathon, type of hackathon and challenge statements you’ll present to participants. Make sure to identify Challenge Owners as a part of this process. Engage your legal counsel to discuss the IP or deliverables that you are looking to secure from the hackathon.
Pick a date for the hackathon. Secure a venue, as well as partners and an event production team if needed. Clear rules and partner solicitation plans with legal.
Begin preparing the hackathon materials and resources – such as APIs,data, etc. Recruit mentors and judges.
Begin marketing the event and open registration to participants. Recruit volunteers. Note that most signups will happen in the last two weeks before the event.
Finalize all partnerships to ensure that any partners’ logos can still appear on marketing materials / websites / artwork.
Send event briefings to all event stakeholders so that everyone knows what to expect the day-of the hackathon.
Breathe! Tweet! Have fun!
Send out surveys to all participants to evaluate their experience.
Begin follow up with hackathon winners/solutions to ensure greatest benefit for your agency.