Hackathon Learnings and Best Practices
On this page
The following information comes from the 2022 SONiC Hackathon collocated at the ONE Summit. Hackathons will differ by foundation.
Timeline and Preparations
Hackathons are able to be planned well in advance (i.e. Zoom rooms, judge identification etc). It relieves a lot of stress and potential issues to set things up prior to the week of the event.
- For Announcement of Hackathon
- Build a distribution list and add LF/Foundation staff as moderators for teams to submit their registrations. Alternatively, use Cvent to track attendees if in person.
- Consider adding a space for teams to collaborate (i.e. Slack channel, Wiki)
- Create an alias for anyone requiring assistance (i.e. hackathonhelp@sonicfoundation.dev). Ensure that LF staff is added.
- T - 1 Month
- Build a Google drive and distribution list (Groups.io or Google Groups) for teams to submit their presentations.
- Identify judges and judging criteria
- Identify prize/awards (i.e. Most Impactful, first/second/third place etc)
If sending a swag box, determine the budget available with the Outreach Committee/GB.
- Identify prizes for winning teams
- Receive a Credly account and submit a design proposal to Creative Services via Jira
- T - 2 Weeks
- Work with event (if onsite) to coordinate any necessary A/V.
- Share repository information with registered teams for slide deck or recording submissions.
Platforms
Given how geographically dispersed most members are within any company/organization, Hackathons are usually held virtually. The SONiC Hackathon was a blend of in-person presenters and virtual attendees.
These were noticeable pain points:
- Constant switching between virtual attendees and in-person presenters was difficult.
- Zoom and PCC had some issues with interoperability. For example, PCC was enabled to auto-record the meetings. However, if an attendee joined early and initiated the start of the meeting, and then left, and then the meeting was restarted, PCC would only record the first initiation of the meeting which resulted in 1-3 minute “recordings”.
General Notes
- Limit the amount of teams participating in the Hackathon or guarantee an appropriate amount of time for presentations. The SONiC Hackathon had 23 teams present over the course of roughly 3 hours, which did not allow teams enough time and led to brain fog for everyone else.
- Give teams several categories to choose from with regards to topics if they are having trouble finding inspiration
- Credly badges are relatively simple to create and issue. However, it does require an LF account with Credly and the creation can be done well ahead of time.
- Identify judges well in advance of the Hackathon.
- Consider a cut-off the day before presentations begin for teams to submit their slide decks, pre-recorded videos etc.