+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                                                                              |
|  Dhananjaya D R                   @/logs   @/software   @/resume   @/contact |
|                                                                              |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+


Hackathons Are Broken
________________________________________________________________________________

This is my own opinionated rant, not representing anyone.
What is an hackathon? You already have plenty of necessary work to do, you don't
need to spend a week doing unnecessary work. why unnecessary? If you win your 
hackathon or the reviewers find it useful you now need to re-structure and 
re write things to build it into a product. If you lose you just spent a week 
doing something you’ll probably not touch again, So yes either way completely 
unnecessary work.
  
I was at an X hours hackathon. It began with the eager optimism. People are 
mingling, teams are forming. At this point, I am excited to see what will be 
built in the next X hours and how I can be a part of it. Then the hacking 
starts. There is less chatter, more focus. Ideas turn into code like caffeine 
into energy. But as the caffeine wears off, reality kicks in, this is where 
projects start to go south in a hackathon. Some common “solutions” are to ditch
the backend, fake some numbers, or steal an existing idea and call it your own.
By presentation time, I am often embarrassed by my own project. Not because I 
didn’t finish what I planned, but because I compromised the values I began the 
night with. 
  
The next day, the judges, who had just arrived for our presentations, voted for
the ideas. I can’t tell you how many times “Uber but for X!” has been pitched 
and won. Yet the judges, who haven’t been to any other hackathons, think it's a
great novel idea. It's really disheartening seeing the same projects win over 
and over. I get it. It's a trade off between not pissing off the judges or 
sponsors. But I think that's something the organizers need to consider. Most of
these judges aren’t even technical, so FLASHY WEB APP CLONE #52 with no BE and 
test values only wins because they can’t grasp how easy it is to make that. The
hackers clapped and congratulated the team as any good sport does. In fact, no 
one even mentioned the elephant in the room. Winning ideas are recycled, and 
daring ideas are ignored at least by the judges. Its a common story. This is 
the steady state of modern hackathon economics.
  
                                    .-'''/.\
                                   (_.--'  |
                                    |  ==  |
                               o-._ .--..--. _.-o
                                   |   ||   |
                                    ;--|`--:
                                    |. |   |
                                    |  ;_ .|
                                    |_____ |
                                   /|     '|\
                                   //`----'\\
                                  ////|  |  \\
                                  /   |  |    \
                                     /|  |\
                                    / \  / \
                                   /   \/   \
                                  /          \
                                  |          |
                                 ||    /\    ||
                                 ||   ,  .   ||
  
In my experience, I would finish feeling humbled but accomplished. Most 
importantly, I would feel like I spent the last X hours for a cause, not just
for MYSELF and a new WATER BOTTLE. I think many hackers feel the same way. We
love the prizes, but that’s not why we spend our weekends hacking together 
weird ideas. I might still attend hackathons, but its usually just to hang out
or for the food while I learn something on my own. I feel like I have seen it 
all. From that perspective, it would be in the judges interest to support the 
type of hackathon that you don’t just attend once or twice, but instead, you get
more out of them the more you attend.

________________________________________________________________________________