10 steps to

organizing
your hackathon

A simple and effective way to launch your hackathon.

www.business.agorize.com/en
 Foreword

Who is this e-book for?

Whether you're an innovation project manager or director, a director of human resources,
a director of internal communications, an incubator or accelerator manager, a digital
transformation officer, head of marketing and communications, head of a higher
education institution, a teacher, educational manager, student or if you're a veteran of
hackathons and the open innovation philosophy;

Whether this will be your first or your 31st hackathon;

Whether you were wondering about the best way to organize a hackathon or whether
you just wanted to make things simpler;

Keep reading you're in the right place!

What does it include?

This e-book contains everything we've learned and the best practices we've identified
over six years of organizing hackathons for businesses and organizations across all
sectors. It includes:

The ten steps you should follow to organize a hackathon.

Original tips and tricks to make every stage of your hackathon a success.

Practical examples from hundreds of past hackathons.

If you only remember two things...

Organizing a hackathon takes time and a methodical approach especially when it's
your first. Put together a motivated and enthusiastic dream team that will design, lead
and manage the challenge, and give yourself at least four weeks of preparation before
the event.
 Foreword

About Agorize

Agorize is a 60-strong startup that specializes in organizing O2O (Online to Offline)

hackathons. Since 2011, the company has organized over 250 hackathons involving a
community of 5 million innovators through its dedicated platform. Agorize works with
200 major clients, including Google, Orange, Publicis, Allianz, Microsoft, Citi Group, Total
and Axa. A multi-award-winning startup, Agorize was voted 'Best Collaborative SaaS
Platform 2016' by French Tech and is in the top 500 most dynamic tech companies as
ranked in the Deloitte Technology Fast500.

Happy reading!
Yohann MELAMED, Yohan ATTAL, Charles THOU
Agorize co-founders
 Introduction

The word hackathon is a contraction of hack a quick DIY solution to overcome any kind
of problem and marathon a distance event that tests participants' stamina. Essentially,
a hackathon is a competition that encourages participants to put forward their most
relevant and innovative solutions to a business or social issue.

When they appeared in the United States at the end of the 1990s, hackathons were
competitions for developers only, and took place as purely physical events over a period
of 24 to 72 hours. The aim was to code an operational app or feature as quickly as possible.

Since then, hackathons have been opened up to a wider audience, including students,
consumers, citizens, customers, startups, employees, and other stakeholders. Alongside
this, they have been extended in terms of length they now take place over several weeks
or even several months.

Hackathons have also gone digital. They've changed from 100% physical events to hybrid
competitions that start online and finish at real-life events what's known as O2O (Online
to Offline) hackathons.

The benefit of O2O hackathons over the traditional 48-hour event is that they're suited to
all business sectors, industries and issues.

Finally, hackathons are increasingly evolving into open innovation challenges where
organizers can put not only individuals but also startups to the test, allowing them to
discover ready-to-use solutions.

We've chosen to focus this e-book on how to organize an O2O hackathon (or open
innovation challenge). We're convinced that a hackathon's success lies in its ability to
combine the best of the digital and physical worlds to maximize involvement, reveal
innovative projects and promote the brand.
 contents

step 1. step 6.
Identifying the aim of the hackathon Writing the brief
Page 6 Page 27

step 2. step 7.
Choosing the right target Creating the design
communities Page 28
Page 8

step 8.
step 3. Maintaining interest during
Constructing the theme the hackathon
Page 10 Page 29

step 4. step 9.
Choosing a platform Preparing and hosting the final
Page 14 Page 33

step 5. step 10.

Setting out the schedule and rules After the hackathon
Page 17 Page 36
 10 Steps to Organizing your Hackathon

1. Identifying the aim of

the hackathon

Launching a hackathon without having a clear aim runs
The people
the risk of a big disappointment, both for you and for your
involved in a
hackathon participants so there are a number of questions you
need to ask yourself.
It's best if this exercise takes place in groups. Having
multiple viewpoints produces richer discussion!
PARTICIPANTS
Employees,
developers,
students,
designers,
The 7 questions to ask
startuppers, customers, yourself to identify the
partners, consumers,
who put forward projects to
etc.
aim of your hackathon
overcome your issue, either in
teams or individually.

In order of importance, what are the three key tasks for

my team/department?
JURY MEMBERS
Your employees, steering
committee or partners, the What are the main drivers that will help us to succeed in
public, or any other group, who these tasks?
will rate the projects based on
specific criteria or pick their
favourites. What are the main obstacles?

What valid approaches have I not yet explored to

MENTORS achieve these tasks?
Employees or partners who will
provide support and advice to
participants to help them to Across all departments, who are the internal supporters
move their project forward.
who will help me to launch a hackathon?

Which departments would be hostile to the idea of a

A PROJECT TEAM
hackathon?
A team tasked with designing,
leading and managing the
hackathon. It will also be
How comfortable with the digital world are the people
responsible for promoting
the hackathon to your target I'd like to get involved in my hackathon?
audience and answering
participants' questions.

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 10 Steps to Organizing your Hackathon

Based on your answers to these questions, you can identify a customized aim for your
hackathon. To help you, we've listed the most common aims our clients want to achieve
under four broad categories.

The four kinds of

hackathon aims

EXPAND YOUR APPROACH TO INNOVATION

Develop new products, services and functions
Source new technologies
Forge partnerships with innovative startups

INNOVATE IN HOW YOU RECRUIT

Test the expertise and interpersonal skills of hundreds
of candidates in real-life conditions
Interact and even work with potential future recruits
Producing
prototypes
Attract entrepreneurial people who enjoy overcoming
challenges It's rare for hackathons to
culminate in a finished and
Develop your employer brand by focusing on innovation
ready-to-use project. You
should expect projects to be at
the concept or prototype stage.
ACCELERATE YOUR DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
You'll also have little in the way
Boost your teams' creativity of precise ideas of the budget
Acclimatize them to the digital world through a learning- or development time. Keep in
mind that above all, the aim
by-doing approach of a hackathon is to inspire
Become an active contributor to the technology you, produce a wide range of
concepts, and ensure that they
ecosystem are relevant.

LAUNCH MORE ENGAGING MARKETING

AND COMMUNICATION CAMPAIGNS
Move from one-to-many communication to participatory and collaborative
communication
Have a greater impact on digital natives
Collect ingenious ideas from participants and work with them to build marketing and
communication campaigns

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 10 Steps to Organizing your Hackathon

2. Choosing the right

target communities

There are three criteria involved in choosing the right target community or communities.
The first two are 1) your main aim and 2) how complete you would like the deliverables
to be.

LEVEL OF
COMPLETION
OF DELIVERA-
BLES High Medium Limited
(turnkey solutions, (prototypes, (ideas, concepts, us-
Proof of Concept) applications, age scenarios, sources
YOUR interfaces) of inspiration)
AIM

Launch more
engaging marketing
and communication
campaigns

Expand your approach to

innovation

Innovate in how you

recruit

Accelerate your digital

transformation

Key:

Students Developers Startups Employees Customers

Young graduates IT profiles Consumers

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 10 Steps to Organizing your Hackathon

We've summarized the benefits and limitations of involving each community in a

hackathon:

STUDENTS DEVELOP- STARTUPS EMPLOY-

ERS EES

Creativity

Technical knowledge

Project completion

Digital transformation

Visibility for your brand

N.B.: The 'students' column can also be expanded to include more general non-expert
groups, such as your customers and consumers.

The third criterion is linked to the Key Performance Indicators you have set out. The three
most common indicators used to measure the success of a hackathon are:

Number of participants
Participation rate (calculated by dividing the number of projects submitted by the
number of participants)
Number of quality projects

Now let's move on in the next chapter, we'll let you in on the secrets of an effective
theme.

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 10 Steps to Organizing your Hackathon

3. Constructing
the theme

Now you need to choose your hackathon's theme in other words, the topic that
participants will focus on.

This is a crucial aspect of your hackathon, because the more interesting and appealing
the theme is to your target communities, the higher your hackathon's participation rate
will be.

Plus, as the saying goes, "a problem clearly stated is a problem half solved". In other words,
a clearly defined theme has a big impact on the relevance and quality of the proposals
you receive!

The main hackathon

themes

6% Innovations in practices

24% Innovations in products

10% or services

Marketing & communication

Environment
16%
21% Social

Operational performance
19%
Other

(Study of 318 hackathons, 70% of which were organized by Agorize)

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 10 Steps to Organizing your Hackathon

Below, we've listed a range of organizations that were able to find an effective hackathon
theme:

Innovations in practices

Galeries Lafayette Crdit Agricole Immobilier Air Liquide and Michelin

Redesign the customer Smart Home Challenge Imagine the sustainable city
experience within and outside Imagine the smart, eco- of the future by optimizing
of the store. Combining friendly home of the future. residents' well-being.
physical and digital, create
the future of the customer
pathway!
Saint-Gobain
Design and create original and intuitive digital-based solutions to help
individuals with one or several steps of their home renovation project.

Innovations in products and services

HP Caisse d'Epargne SEB

Find new uses for the Sprout, Invent services and The kitchen of the future
the next-gen computer from technologies for the imagine the next small
HP! cooperative bank of the future! appliance that cooking
lovers the world over will go
crazy for.

Thales
Project Arduino using an Arduino Uno kit, invent and design an
innovative object/project that fits in with one of the Group's areas
of business (aeronautics, space, defence, security and transport).

Marketing & communication

Microsoft Philips Happn

Microsoft Surface Pro Design the launch campaign Design and implement your
3 Challenge Covering for the new Philips multi- marketing campaign to
everything from room speaker system. attract new Happn users!
positioning and analysing
the competition to the
launch campaign, create a
marketing strategy aimed at
students.

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 10 Steps to Organizing your Hackathon

Environment

SNCF Engie Agence Franaise de

Green Track Challenge Decarbonathon Develop Dveloppement
Find innovative and eco- innovations to reduce Digital Africa Boost your
friendly solutions to remove startup and let the world know
cities' CO2 emissions to help
vegetation from railway about your digital solution
combat global warming.
lines. to help support sustainable
development in Africa.

Social

Fondation Cognacq-Jay Wix

Create the social solidarity of Boost your charity project or startup and promote a mixed
the future. approach to entrepreneurship.

Operational performance

Total and Air Liquide Aroports de Paris

Boost My Op Imagine the operator of the future to boost Innovative startups help
industrial groups' operational safety and performance. HR at the ADP Group to go
digital!

Agotip Sub-themes for your

hackathon

Hackathons can feature sub-themes. For example, if the main theme of your
hackathon is smart homes, you could include sub-themes such as robotics,
energy performance or smart objects.
These sub-themes will help to guide participants' thinking and focus their
projects on the topics that matter to you.

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 10 Steps to Organizing your Hackathon

O2O hackathons as training tools?

As well as the competitive aspect, O2O hackathons are an excellent method of providing
innovative training on a huge scale. Participants develop their creativity while resolving
issues, and organizers can encourage them towards online-based educational content
(MOOCs, COOCs, webinars, methodologies, etc.). O2O hackathons are a chance for
participants to go beyond the inflexible and passive framework of traditional training
programmes thanks to a learning-by-doing approach.

To complete their training, participants work individually or in teams on projects that

address your organization's real needs and issues giving them the chance to apply the
skills they've just learned right away.

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 10 Steps to Organizing your Hackathon

4. Choosing
a platform

You've identified your aims, the communities you're targeting, and the theme your
participants will address. Now it's time to choose the tool you'll use to publish and manage
your hackathon.

You have two options to choose from:

Option 1:
Develop a website that's dedicated
specifically to your hackathon

If you're lucky enough to have the technical resources to build your own hackathon
platform, make sure you give your technical teams your specifications, explaining all the
features you want it to have. There are two types of features those that are essential, and
those that are optional but will make your life a lot easier.

The pros and cons of developing your own hackathon

platform

Pros Cons

Customized platform with all High development cost

the features you need Development time needs to be taken into account in the schedule
Optimum integration with your Blank database necessary to acquire participants
existing tools: IT system, intranet, Difficult to ensure that the platform is fully functional on all browsers
internal social networks, etc. and devices.
100% proprietary participant Little room for developing the tool if new features need to be added
database quickly.

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 10 Steps to Organizing your Hackathon

The essential features for a good

hackathon platform

PARTICIPANT ORGANIZER
EXPERIENCE EXPERIENCE

ESSENTIAL Quickly register and create a Access all participant profiles

FEATURES profile
Access all submitted projects
Submit projects online

OPTIONAL Find team-mates easily Vote for projects

FEATURES (these
are extremely
Collaborate and Include external voters
useful)
communicate online
Mentor participants online
Receive mentoring from pros
Monitor hackathon statistics
Have access to a public in real time
discussion wall
Public discussion wall or
Share the challenge and your forum
project on social media
Export profiles and projects
Use chat and/or video-
conference tools Customize the platform
design
Personalize your participant
space

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 10 Steps to Organizing your Hackathon

Option 2:
Use an existing online
hackathon platform

Depending on your requirements, you will need a range of features that enrich not only
the participants' experience, but also the organizers' experience. For example, the Agorize
platform makes it easy to build teams thanks to an interface that works with participants'
skills. It provides a space for online collaboration between its one million users, as well as
external mentoring features, also through the platform. For organizers, an online voting
interface and a dashboard provide the complete range of real-time hackathon statistics
for ease of management.

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 10 Steps to Organizing your Hackathon

5. Setting out the

schedule and rules

When you launch a hackathon, you begin a process of open innovation. In this context,
transparency is key to your success. Be clear and honest about the rules of the game: who
can take part? who is the organizer and what issues do you face? what are the prizes to
be won? what is the schedule? what about intellectual property? what will happen with
the winning projects?

5.1 The main stages

Now let's take a look at the main points of your hackathon. To make your life easier, we've
listed the stages that are generally included. These major steps will create the right rhythm
and the right amount of pressure to encourage participants to stretch themselves.

Kick-off: Hackathon launched

Registration and ideation stage: Participants register for the hackathon

individually or in teams, then submit a brief overview of their project.

Pre-selection vote: An initial jury selects the most promising projects

(generally between 10 and 30) that will advance to the next stage of the
hackathon.

Prototyping or expansion stage: The selected teams develop their project in

more detail and produce models of their solution.

Selection vote: A second jury selects the projects shortlisted for the final
(generally between 3 and 10).

Mentoring: To help them prepare for the final, participants that are still in the
running receive customized support how to pitch, help with their videos
and presentations, etc.

Final: The finalists have a few minutes to pitch their project to a grand jury (generally formed
of your organization's top management team). A live vote is organized and the prizes are
awarded to the winning teams.

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 10 Steps to Organizing your Hackathon

5.2 Reverse planning

Start from the date by which you need to have achieved your aim, and estimate how
much time it will take to complete each stage of the hackathon.
For example, let's imagine that by 31 January, you need to have found five innovative
projects. You'll need three to four months to organize the challenge, find enough
participants, choose the best projects, organize the final and reveal the winners so you'll
need to start organizing your hackathon in early October of the previous year. However,
you can shorten the duration of your hackathon (1 week for all steps, for example) if you
want a more intensive schedule.

Template for reverse-planning your schedule

1ST STAGE 2ND STAGE 3RD STAGE

REGISTRATION PROTOTYPING PREPARATIONS FOR THE FINAL
No. of participants No. of participants No. of participants
(duration: ) (duration: ) (duration: )

Preparation Vote Vote

(4 weeks) (date: ) (date: )

Agotip For a successful hackathon,

you will need:

A large number of participants and a high participation rate

Multidisciplinary and complementary teams
Completed projects and concepts
Dialogue and sharing of knowledge between participants and the organizing
company

The O2O (online to offline) hackathon format presents a number of advantages

over fully physical events lasting 48-72 hours. Essentially, it allows you to reach
more participants (larger geographic scope, more diverse profiles), to achieve
more in-depth projects thanks to the length, and to get to know participants,
particularly in terms of their interpersonal skills, their personalities and their
technical abilities. Plus, there's a physical aspect with the IRL (In Real Life)
ceremony for the grand final. To sum up, O2O hackathons combine the best of
both the online and offline worlds.

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 10 Steps to Organizing your Hackathon

5.3 Methods of participation

5.3.1 PARTICIPANTS' PROFILES

These are the filters that you'll apply to participants' profiles, as well as to your hackathon's
legal framework. These could include:
Age
Country/Region/City
Department/Division/Business Unit
Business sector or area of expertise
Socio-professional category
Course
Level of education
University/College
Individual or in teams specify the number of participants per team
(we recommend 2 to 5 members per team)
Intellectual property model

We recommend that you make your hackathon as open as possible. The most successful
hackathons are those that allow as many people as possible to take part, regardless
of their background or skills. This encourages people to form multidisciplinary and
complementary teams, resulting in truly innovative ideas.

5.3.2 DELIVERABLES

At each stage, you need to decide what deliverables will be used to judge participants.
The further participants get in the competition, the more complex deliverables you can
request. Here are our suggested deliverables for each stage of the hackathon:

1ST STAGE 2ND STAGE 3ND STAGE

IDEATION EXPANSION FINAL

Brief deliverable In-depth deliverable Pitch

3 slides 20 slides Storyboard Presentation
Template Video Model Demo
Matrix Prototype Application Video
Questionnaire Cartoon Smart device

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 10 Steps to Organizing your Hackathon

5.3.3 THE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY MODEL USED IN YOUR HACKATHON

It's essential that you address the issue of intellectual property when launching a hackathon.
Who do the ideas and projects belong to? Do you have the right to reuse or modify them?
This point needs to be dealt with carefully to ensure your hackathon remains a win-win
situation for everyone involved. There are four main intellectual property models:

Rights shared by participants Exclusive purchase of rights by the organizer

Participants share their rights to their work. Participants agree not to disclose their work
The organizer can share and adapt the for a certain period of time, during which the
participants' work, including for commercial organizer, if it so wishes, has the exclusive right
purposes, as long as the creator of the work is to purchase the rights following negotiations
mentioned. with the relevant teams. Following the period
in question, participants retain their intellectual
property rights.

Total transfer of rights by the participants

In this case, it is made clear to participants
that they will cede their rights over their work Full retention of rights by participants
upon their involvement in the challenge in In this case, participants retain all of their
accordance with the terms set out in the rights over the work they produce. This is the
challenge rules. (Note that full transfer of the option we recommend when the challenge is
participants' rights may reduce the appeal for communication purposes or when it is a
of the challenge and foster distrust among business creation challenge, for example.
external participants. This model is better
suited to an in-house hackathon with your
employees.)

ABOUT THE CREATIVE COMMONS 3.0 LICENCE

The Creative Commons 3.0 licence has the benefit of being free and open and has several
levels of restriction* while meeting stakeholders' needs:

FOR THE COMPANY FOR PARTICIPANTS

Copy and distribute the work and Guarantee copyright is protected

communicate it to others
Allow prototype stage to be taken further
Edit, alter and build upon the work
Retain the ability to launch their project
Collaborate quickly with participants

*depending on the type of licence chosen, rights to use the work vary. For more information, visit the Creative
Commons website: https://creativecommons.org/

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 10 Steps to Organizing your Hackathon

To create a fair situation for participants, we recommend that

Agotip you use the Creative Commons licence for the description

of the project, but that you consider deliverables such as
models, code and prototypes to remain the property of
the teams.

In terms of sharing rights between individuals within

participating teams, we recommend that in your rules for
participation, you state that all items produced as a result
We strongly recommend that of work by several participants constitutes a collaborative
you consult your legal adviser to
determine the best intellectual work.
property mechanism to apply.
Every hackathon has its own
unique features, as does In cases where the work of individuals is difficult to identify
every project that participants separately, a collaborative work brings all team members
submit. Ideally, you should
draw up your own custom
together as a single unit, helping them to quickly get into
model that also takes into the mindset of post-challenge collaboration.
account your organization's
specific requirements.
Together, the use of the Creative Commons 3.0 licence and
In addition, ensuring that
treating the project as a collaborative work allows you to:
participants sign a non-
disclosure agreement allows
you to safely and easily pass
Motivate participants by respecting their moral rights
on confidential information
to only those teams that have and therefore their copyright
been selected. You can then
be sure that any sensitive data
you may share will not be Allow where required the sharing, copying, distribution
divulged to other teams or your and communication to others of the resulting work
competitors. This means that at
every stage of your hackathon,
you can safely send additional Boost a collaborative and agile project while minimizing
instructions, details and data to
participants.
the risks of conflict within the team over intellectual
property during and after the challenge.

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 10 Steps to Organizing your Hackathon

5.4 Support for

participants

The support you provide to participants is crucial to making your hackathon a success.
It is often an integral part of the experience and one of the aspects participants look for.

It can take a number of forms:

A framework document explaining registration methods, how to sign up, create or join a
team, etc.

A support department of people who will help participants throughout the hackathon
(registration, questions, clarifications, tools, platform, etc.)

Educational content providing context, training, MOOCs, COOCs, webinars, etc.

Mentoring for shortlisted teams from experts who will work to support them.

Why get mentors involved in

your hackathon?

Mentors guide and advise participants with their project. We strongly

recommend that you use mentors in order to improve the quality of your
projects. Mentors enrich the experience not only for participants, but
also for organizers. Participants get an expert opinion on their work, and
mentors discover innovative projects that shed new light on their work.
Our advice for choosing a good mentor? Find your employees with good
teaching skills, who like to share their knowledge, who are open-minded
and who are passionate about open innovation and co-creation.
Also consider the way you'll involve your mentors in the hackathon,
operationally speaking. To do this, a platform offering an online mentoring
feature may be useful to optimize your mentors' time investment.

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 10 Steps to Organizing your Hackathon

5.5 Jury members

Having a good quality jury is crucial to ensure that the chosen projects are the most
relevant to your organization. When creating your jury, you have two options: using jury
members either from within or outside your organization. We recommend that you create
a mixed panel of internal and external jury members.

Involving jury members from within your organization will help you to get them used to
innovation and the digital world while carrying out an in-house communication campaign
based on your hackathon. Simultaneously involving external jury members will mean you
benefit from a new perspective and a different viewpoint on the submitted projects.

Internal jury:
Members of your top management team
Employees

External jury:
Customers
Consumers
Partners/service providers
Experts/consultants
The general public

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 10 Steps to Organizing your Hackathon

5.6 The selection process

How can you reveal the best projects during your hackathon? To properly filter through
the huge numbers of projects and concepts put forward, you'll need to carry out a first
round of selection.

Here's an example of the selection process that has been tried and tested through 250
hackathons organized by Agorize's teams:

20 projects 5 shortlisted 5 best

selected projects selected projects ranked

IDEATION EXPANSION PITCH AWARDS

CEREMONY

JURY SELECTION JURY SELECTION MANAGEMENT

(4 teams) VOTE
+
PUBLIC 'LIKE' VOTE
(1 team)

KEY:

Public 'like' vote: the public is asked to 'like' their favourite projects.

Jury selection: the jury assesses and scores each project based on pre-determined criteria
(see below).

Management vote: your organization's top managers decide between the shortlisted
projects to appoint the winner(s) of the hackathon.

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 10 Steps to Organizing your Hackathon

5.7 Your selection

criteria Agotip


The selection criteria are the core framework for your jury
members. Because they determine how projects will be
assessed, they're essential. Some of the most common
criteria include:

Originality
Feasibility We recommend that you
organize a Like vote as well as
Budget a Jury vote.
Efficiency Unlike a jury vote, where the
number of jury members is
Relevance limited and projects remain
Sustainability private, a 'like' vote means that
you can get a large number
Environmental aspect of people (your employees,
Quality of the model partners, customers,
consumers, the general public,
Quality of the pitch
etc.) involved in choosing the
winning projects. You can
then extend the reach of your
Each of these criteria should be weighted based on the
initiative and your image as an
importance you place on them. This will make the final innovative brand through viral
score more accurate. marketing.

5.8 Prizes and benefits for winners

Taking part in a hackathon requires a lot of time and investment from participants. To give
yourself the best possible chance and to make your hackathon truly appealing, carefully
choose the prizes and benefits given to the winners.

Below is a list of the benefits that we've identified as being the most attractive to
participants:

Gain experience: participants work in teams on a real-life case and are encouraged to
find innovative solutions through their project. The experience adds value to their CV.
Receive coaching from professionals: the most promising participants are given advice
on their project. These productive discussions add to participants' experience and attract
the most talented individuals.

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 10 Steps to Organizing your Hackathon

Get noticed or be recruited: for participants, taking part in a hackathon is a chance

to highlight their technical and interpersonal skills and their ability to innovate. It's an
opportunity for participants to get noticed or even be recruited by the organizers.

Better visibility: for startups, talented individuals with entrepreneurial dreams and
intrapreneurs alike, a hackathon is the perfect chance to become more visible to potential
partners, customers and investors.

In addition to these benefits, individual participants are motivated by the prizes that
are available to winners. If your budget allows, focus on high-value prizes that will be
attractive to as many people as possible iPads, smart devices, TVs, travel, etc.

Startups will be more interested in support, incubation, funding for a POC (Proof of
Concept), access to your network of customers, partners and suppliers, and better visibility
through your communication campaigns.

If you have a limited budget, offer either your own products and services or those of your
partners you benefit from a lower cost and the hackathon retains its appeal.

Example prizes depending

on your target groups

PRIZE BUDGET PRIZE BUDGET

Ticket to show/concert GoPro Hero 5

Netflix subscription iPad Air 2
Gift set Drone
Under 100 Under 800
Bose headphones Samsung 3D TV
Philips portable speaker Medium-haul flight
Oculus VR headset
250 GB SSD drive
Premium Deezer Mobiky folding bike
subscription Long-haul flight
Sphero 4K Samsung TV
Withings scale Under 200 3D printer Over 1000
Apple TV Travel + excursions
TomTom Go 500 GPS Laptop
Airbnb gift card World tour

iPad Mini Incubation

iWatch Funding
Spa weekend Support, coaching To be
Under 400
Playstation 4/Xbox One Media visibility/PR determined
VR headset

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 10 Steps to Organizing your Hackathon

6. Writing
the brief

The brief is key to making your hackathon a success. In practical terms, you need to explain
your issues, the theme you've chosen and your expectations regarding the deliverable
and it needs to be brief and appealing.

Once again, the more care you take with writing the brief, the more participants you'll
attract.

The key elements of the brief

Hackathon name: Choose an original and appealing name. The more appealing it is, the
more clicks you'll get from social media and search engine results pages.

Challenge: You need to tell potential participants about your aims. Refer to the aim you
stated in step 1 identifying the aim.

Theme: Here you should state the result of step 3 constructing the theme.

Sub-themes: Indicate any sub-themes that could help guide participants.

Your expectations and selection criteria: You need to state the type of deliverable and
the criteria you'll use to judge the projects. Are you looking for an app, a smart device, an
approach, a usage scenario, a product, a service?

Sign-up methods: Here you should state the methods you decided on in section 5.2.

Schedule: Outline the major stages of the hackathon as determined in step 5.3.

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7. Creating
the design

Even more important than the name is the design of your hackathon it's central to its
success. Build an attractive and unique visual identity while remaining close to your own
image and style.

Creating the graphic identity

1. 2. 3.

With a style that is: Photographs Based on sources of

minimalist, corporate, Illustrations inspiration?
clean, technical, high-end?

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 10 Steps to Organizing your Hackathon

8. Maintaining interest
during the hackathon

8.1 Preparing your outreach campaign

To attract as many participants as possible and maximize the impact of your event,
outreach will play a vital role before, when launching, and throughout your hackathon.
Even if you're a big brand or renowned organization, it isn't easy to win the attention of
your target communities. Universities and startups in particular are in high demand and
are contacted by a great deal of outreach campaigns, many of which are poorly targeted
and irrelevant meaning that standing out from the crowd is no mean feat. Below is our
list of all the drivers you need to win their attention:

PRESS RELEASES AND PR MEASURES

Inform the media that you're launching your hackathon. Prepare a short, high-impact
press release. When writing your press release, take inspiration from your brief set out
the issues you face, the theme of the hackathon, the timeline, what you will gain from it
and the prizes you're offering.

TWITTER, FACEBOOK AND LINKEDIN POSTS

Announce the launch of the hackathon on all your social media. Choose a dedicated
hashtag for your hackathon so you can monitor the online activity it creates. Ask your
employees to share the news and publish a post on your intranet.

TWITTER, FACEBOOK AND LINKEDIN ADS

Extend the scope of your outreach measures using Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn ads.
Sponsoring posts is a low-cost way of boosting your hackathon's visibility, meaning you
can reach people outside of your networks.

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COMMUNICATION WITH UNIVERSITIES, INCUBATORS, ACCELERATORS, ETC.

Contact educational and administrative staff responsible for courses, or the incubators
you are hoping to target, and tell them about your hackathon. Watch out universities
and colleges are in high demand, and may not seem keen when you contact them. If
you haven't yet got your foot in the door of the academic world, we recommend that
you contact a well-established intermediary (read the section entitled 'Which outreach
partner should you choose?'). This will give you direct access to their network, and you
won't have to contact each institution directly.

EVENTS
Invest in events that will attract your target communities depending on your needs, these
could be student fairs or public exhibitions, startup conferences, or tech and recruitment
events. Make sure you have physical media you can display and hand out at the event
such as posters, banners, flyers and goodies.

Adapt the approach you take to your target

communities!
Agotip FOR STARTUPS
Contact incubators and accelerators, and even co-working spaces. It's a win-win
situation they spread the word about your hackathon and encourage startups
to register, and the startups that they are incubating get a visibility boost and
have the chance to secure new partnerships.

FOR STUDENTS
Physical presentations in universities and colleges remain the most effective
way of communicating with this group. It's also a long-term investment: you
create strong relationships with universities for future hackathons or for passing
on your internship adverts, for example.

FOR DEVELOPERS
If the deliverable for your hackathon is a smart object or requires the use of specific technology (such as a 3D
printer), you can also let fablabs know about your hackathon. Fablabs (a contraction of 'fabrication laboratory'
a cross between a workshop and a laboratory) is a working space that is open to everyone, providing tools and
machines for use by the public to allow them to design all kinds of objects.

FOR YOUR EMPLOYEES

Publicize your hackathon on your company's intranet and social media. Also make sure you launch an in-house
email campaign and display posters in busy areas of your premises to encourage as many of your employees
as possible to take part.
You can also organize a launch event. It's the perfect opportunity to present the hackathon to your colleagues
and to boost participation rates.
Getting management involved is another way to encourage your colleagues to sign up for the hackathon. You
could ask the top management team to act as jury members and to vote for the best projects, or ask middle
management employees to mentor the teams. It's a chance for your employees to meet up and work together
in a less formal setting.

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 10 Steps to Organizing your Hackathon

8.2 Which outreach partner should you

choose?

As we've just seen, it's crucial to implement outreach measures to promote your
hackathon. However, it can seem like a mammoth job, especially if you have limited in-
house resources. At Agorize, for example, three or four people will work on promoting a
single hackathon for six to ten weeks. If your resources are limited, then working with a
partner may be essential. Here's an overview of the market stakeholders that can give
you a hand, along with their benefits and limitations:

TYPE OF PARTNER BENEFITS LIMITATIONS

Push campaigns
Creativity and originality
Advertising agency Difficult to measure ROI
Innovative channels
Long wait before results

Network of journalists and No direct interaction

PR agency influencers ROI cannot be measured
Increased visibility Long wait before results

No direct interaction
Large subscriber base
Specialist media Poorly suited to a large
Accurately targeted
target

An international network
of students, developers,
universities, startups and
Highly dependent on the
incubators that can be
Agorize appeal of the hackathon
activated instantly
Limitations due to student
Direct interaction
schedules
Mix of online and physical
outreach

Little control on the quality

Direct interaction of communications
Call centre
Quick results Limited reach

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 10 Steps to Organizing your Hackathon

8.3 Maximizing participation

Having a large number of people registered for the hackathon doesn't necessarily
guarantee a high participation rate! On average, 28% of people who sign up won't
submit a project. That's why you need to maintain your outreach efforts throughout the
hackathon by using methods such as:

EMAIL CAMPAIGNS
Plan to send at least three emails to remind registered participants to submit their projects
on time: 10 days before, three days before and on the day of the deadline.
We recommend that you also remind them of the prizes that are up for grabs as well as
the total number of participants, teams and projects submitted so far. It's a good way of
motivating teams that haven't yet submitted their project.

A COMMUNITY SPACE ON YOUR PLATFORM

As mentioned in step 4, 'Choosing a platform', you should include a 'Facebook wall'-style
space on your platform where you can communicate with all participants at the same
time.

SOCIAL MEDIA
It's crucial that you create a publishing schedule for your social media posts throughout
the hackathon. Your community managers will maximize engagement with the public by
being reactive and by replying in real time to people who mention your hackathon and
your company. Organizers and participants interact most via social media. Participants
will contact you whenever they encounter problems. Hence the need to be reactive: if
a participant is unhappy and doesn't get a response, they might lose interest in your
hackathon. Even worse, they could create a negative buzz around the whole event!

MAKE YOUR HACKATHON GO VIRAL

The advantage of O2O hackathons is their collaborative aspect. Asking participants to
form teams online encourages them to convince members of their network to sign up as
well. It means that participants become ambassadors, actively promoting the hackathon
(and your brand!) to their friends and family.

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 10 Steps to Organizing your Hackathon

9. Preparing and hosting

the final

9.1 Choosing the venue

You need to choose the venue where the final will take place. You have two options:

Create an entirely separate event: you can hire a room or organize the final at your
premises. This is ideal if you have shortlisted several teams or if you want each team to be
given a long slot to pitch their project.

Take part in an existing event: Although this isn't always possible, it's a good way to gain
visibility. Your final and your hackathon will benefit from the existing event's reputation
and attendance. The event could be your business seminar, or another type of event. For
example, ENGIE organized the final of its Decarbonathon hackathon during COP21.

9.2 Choosing the type of event

Pitch to a jury: this is the best solution if the projects are complete and if the teams have
solid deliverables that are ready to be presented. This is the case for hackathons involving
startups, for example. If the aim of your hackathon was also to identify innovative ideas
and concepts that don't require prototypes to be constructed (for hackathons aimed at
students or the general public, for instance), we also recommend that you use the pitch
format.

Physical hackathon or speedhack: an IRL (In Real Life, or physical) hackathon or a

speedhack session (where prototyping takes place in just a few hours) is better if teams
will present prototypes (apps, software, smart devices, etc.). This is generally the case
when your hackathon is aimed at developers and those with tech backgrounds.

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 10 Steps to Organizing your Hackathon

9.3 Preparing
the shortlisted teams

PREPARING THE PITCH
Whether your participants are students, developers, startups or your employees, finalists
are rarely used to making public presentations. We strongly recommend that you organize
pitch preparation sessions to improve the quality of their presentations and of the final in
general.
You can have your employees run these sessions, or contact external service providers.

ASSISTANCE WITH PROTOTYPING

During hackathons that require coding or the use of tools (3D printers or smart device
kits, for example), it's important that you assist teams to ensure that they produce high-
quality final deliverables.
You could use your teams to supervise the prototyping stage and advise the finalists. If
you don't have a workshop within your organization, you could organize a half-day of
prototyping at a fablab.

CHOOSING THE HOST

Once again, you have two options to choose from:
You or a member of your team hosts the final. Note that this requires preparation,
endurance and enthusiasm to ensure that you create the right atmosphere.
You can call upon the services of a professional host who has experience with this kind of
event. In this case, you'll need to brief him or her beforehand on what the ceremony will
involve and your expectations.

LOGISTICS
If participants live in your country or a nearby country:
The members of shortlisted teams won't necessarily live in the city where your final will
be held. Because of this, you should pay their travel costs, including train or plane tickets
and accommodation.

If participants live in a more distant country:

You should send an official invitation letter to members of teams shortlisted for the final
so they can apply for a visa to attend the final. If having them attend proves too difficult,
organize a live pitch at the final using a video-conferencing tool.

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 10 Steps to Organizing your Hackathon

VOTE AND AWARDS CEREMONY

Once the teams have finished their pitches, the jury you have appointed will cast their votes
and announce the winners. At this stage, an online voting platform that's also available
to the public can be extremely useful. It allows you to increase the level of interaction
between the public, the jury and the finalists. It's also a great way of spicing up the final!
Use visual props when awarding the prizes, such as trophies or giant cheques. They'll help
you to get great photos and videos for your post-hackathon marketing.

NETWORKING COCKTAIL RECEPTION

Finally, after the awards ceremony, organize a cocktail reception so participants can
network. These meetings between your teams and the finalists are an important stage
of your hackathon. It's the perfect opportunity to get to know promising and talented
people and perhaps even offer them a job interview!

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 10 Steps to Organizing your Hackathon

10. After the hackathon

The final's over and the winning teams have been given their prizes. Now it's time to look
back over your hackathon and think about what you got from it the innovative projects
it revealed and any talented people you may have identified and recruited.

10.1 Reviewing your hackathon

This doesn't just mean working out your hackathon's ROI simply because it's hard to
measure the impact a hackathon has on a company's image and growth right after the
final. You also can't predict how a project will perform once it's been rolled out at an
organization.

However, it is crucial that you:

Assess the final statistics from your hackathon: the number of people who registered,
the number of participants and teams, the participation rate (the proportion of people
who registered/participants who submitted a project) and any other details that are
important to your organization (breakdown by location, age, sex, university/education,
business sector, etc.)

Analyse the results of your outreach measures: identify which channels worked
best (offline, online, social media, email or phone campaigns, etc.) at each stage of the
hackathon and which channels didn't give you satisfactory results.

Assess the quality of projects and profiles: are you happy with the level and suitability
of the participants (were universities/startups accurately targeted?) and of the submitted
projects, and are you satisfied with participants' commitment throughout the hackathon?

Measure participants' satisfaction: it's important to find out what they liked, what they
disliked, and what they would have done differently. To do this, you can get feedback
from participants via an online questionnaire after the hackathon.

Once you've taken a look back at your hackathon, it's time to think about whether to
implement the projects you've chosen.

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 10 Steps to Organizing your Hackathon

10.2 Accelerating projects

Now the hackathon is over, it's time to consider the relevance and feasibility of the winning
projects.

Have you discovered new growth drivers for your

organization? Have the winners created new products
and services, processes, tools, apps or software? Can these
drivers actually be leveraged?

If you decide to implement the project, strike while the

iron is hot! Start rolling out the project as soon as the
hackathon is over. The more time that passes, the more
likely it is that the innovative ideas you've identified will
be forgotten. This way, you'll avoid disappointing the
participants, finalists and employees who organized the
hackathon.

You have several opportunities open to you when putting projects into practice:

Implement the project within the company by purchasing the rights from the holders

Recruit the rights holders or pay them as freelancers to roll out the project in collaboration
with them

Incubate and/or fund the rights holders

Whichever solution you choose, the ideal approach is to involve the winners in the process
of putting their solution in place by recruiting them. This could be on an internship, a
temporary contract, or a permanent contract. If this isn't possible, consider involving
the winners at different stages throughout the process of implementing the project
(particularly at the end, when their idea is brought to life). This is an additional benefit
that you can emphasize during future hackathon events to increase participation.

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 10 Steps to Organizing your Hackathon

It may be that the projects are not relevant enough to you or that implementing them
would be too difficult. Don't panic there are many benefits to hackathons! If the winning
project isn't put in place, it can still inspire other solutions within your organization. Your
hackathon can help to bring innovation to your company and demonstrate to your
employees and stakeholders that you're willing to listen to innovative solutions.

What's more, hackathons are powerful communication tools.

10.3 Communicate

Whether the winning projects are put in place or not, it's crucial that you tell others about
your hackathon. For both internal and external hackathons, there are a host of advantages
to carrying out a communication campaign that focuses on the projects, the winners,
your overview and the benefits that your company has gained.

10.3.1 COMMUNICATING INTERNALLY

For internal hackathons, it's important to feature the winning colleagues, the shortlisted
teams and their projects on your intranet. You can also target an email campaign at all of
your employees.

It's a good way of uniting your teams and boosting commitment within your organization.

Don't forget to promote it on social media. Despite it being an internal hackathon, it's a
great way of showing that your organization is open to innovation and transformation.
From an HR marketing point of view, it's also an effective way of demonstrating to your
future new employees that you value a collaborative approach to innovation and that
every employee's opinion matters.

10.3.2 COMMUNICATING EXTERNALLY

Hackathons are also a good way to boost your institutional communications to reach out
to investors, customers, consumers, the general public, partners, and potential applicants.

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 10 Steps to Organizing your Hackathon

10.4 Recruiting the best talent

Finally, regardless of whether its ultimate aim is to recruit or not, a hackathon is a chance
to identify new talent. This is even more true for O2O hackathons they mean you can
test participants over several months and get to know them better.

You can then offer HR interviews to the finalists. But don't cast the other participants
aside just because they didn't get to the final. A member of a team that didn't get beyond
the expansion stage can turn out to be an excellent candidate thanks to their personality
and skills.

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 10 Steps to Organizing your Hackathon

Organizing your hackathon

Checklist

After reading all of these instructions on how to organize your hackathon, we hope you
understand that making your event a success requires thorough preparation. Here's a
summary of how to get the most from your hackathon:

1. Identify the aim of the hackathon 6. Write the brief

2. Choose the right target 7. Create the design
communities
8. Maintain interest during the
3. Construct the theme hackathon
4. Choose a platform Prepare your
outreach campaign
5. Set out the schedule and rules
Maximize participation
Reverse planning
9. Prepare and host the final
Methods of participation
Venue
Profiles
Type of event
Deliverables
Preparing the finalists
Intellectual
property 10. After the hackathon
Major stages Review your hackathon
Support for participants Accelerate projects
Jury members Communicate
Voting methods Recruit the best talent
Selection criteria
Prizes and benefits

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 10 Steps to Organizing your Hackathon

If you don't feel ready to launch

a hackathon on your own,
don't panic!

Agorize has organized more than 250 hackathons for 200 organizations
through its online-to-offline hackathon platform.
Contact us and we'll help you organize
your hackathon.

Agorize
FRANCE
34 rue du Faubourg Saint Antoine
75012 Paris
+33 (0)1 55 43 79 47

GERMANY USA HONG KONG

Knigstrae 31 2001 The Embarcadero WeWork Wanchai, 7/F,
70173 Stuttgart San Francisco, CA 94133 33 Lockhart Road Wanchai
+49 (0)711 21954837 +1 (415) 712 6604 +852 5420 9249

[email protected]

www.business.agorize.com/en

Want to launch your hackathon?

Contact Agorize!

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