March 18, 2020 - Everything was going well and it was a usual day in my college. I was in the games room of our hostel, playing cricket with a sponge ball wrapped with tape 😂. All of a sudden, I heard commotion outside the room. When I went out to check, I saw my hostel friends dancing in joy, tearing and throwing pamphlets [official notice from college]. I picked one up and read - "Due to ongoing Corona Virus Pandemic, all students must immediately leave the hostel. You need to return by 31st March, 2020". Well what was supposed to be a 11 days holiday, soon turned into a year and a half long vacation [study from home 😁].
During this period I had a lot of time to spend, as the classes were almost over for that particular semester. I thought of improving my skills and learning something new. One day while watching YouTube videos, I saw a Hackathon in Bangalore suggestion on my feed. I watched the entire video and immediately searched for Hackathons on Google [To be honest, I had very little knowledge about hackathons]. Well the technical definition of Hackathons is - "A hackathon is a design sprint-like event; often, in which computer programmers and others involved in software development, including graphic designers, interface designers, project managers, domain experts, and others collaborate intensively on software projects."
For me the definition would be - "A Hackathon is an event where hackers, beginners or experienced, come together to learn, have fun, grow and interact ". Lets be honest, not everyone can win, but everyone can atleast try.
When I looked up for hackathons on google, I realised most of them are taking place virtually due to the pandemic.
My first ever Hackathon as a participant was actually a boot-camp organized by Girlscript Foundation and IncubateInd. It was at this event, I learnt how to write Html, CSS, JS and finally deploy your website. And then, it was the start of an era for me - participated in 10+ hackathons, mentored 10+ both national and international hackathons. Was a judge at several hackathons. Organized two hackathons, which includes Hack The Mountain 1.0 and 2.0 [will write a separate blog for it 😅] by J&K's first tech community. This is a golden opportunity for tech-savvy people to hone their skills and introduce their findings to the world.
Now there are some advantages as well as disadvantages of virtual Hackathons. I will list a few of them.
Advantages:
1. It is easy to meet everyone especially for people who cannot afford to travel to an offline event.
2. I can participate in Hackathons that take place globally. Yes, during my hacking period I participated in Hackathons from UK, Canada, US. This helped me meet a lot of people who are experienced in their field.
3. Even beginners have started participating in more numbers.
Disadvantages:
1. I feel the biggest disadvantage of online event is atmosphere. Like in an offline event you usually see a lot of people, dedicated and completely focusing on their screen [coding like a pro].
2. Food and swags. Although some hackathons are trying to provide swags in online events too, but food is something they cannot provide. And to be honest atleast 10% of participants go to hackathons for food and swags.
3. Number of cheating cases. In an online event the cases of cheating have made it hard for organizers to pick a winner. When a top 55, top 10, or top 3 are declared the remaining participants are quick enough to scan the projects of the winning team and find out the ones who cheated. Yes, it is right that only deserved ones should win, but as a organizer your workload increases and it also creates a chaos amongst participants.
Websites you can refer to find more information about Hackathons -
1. MLH - Major League Hacking (MLH) is the official student hackathon league. I suggest you check their website before anyone else. They have a discord channel with over 10k participants from around world. MLH does not have its own submission platform.
2. Devfolio - A popular website for Indian hackers. They were our sponsors for HTM 1.0 and 2.0.
3. Devpost - Devpost is a popular website for international Hackers. Infact MLH hackathons usually have Devpost as a submission portal.
4. Hackerrank - It is popular for coding amongst students, but at the same time you find a lot of hackathon opportunities.
5. Eventbrite - It is a website that provides people with a platform to post about events and connect with other people. Events such as tech-talks, marathons, concerts, music festivals, hackathons, and much more can be found.
Most hackathon organizers struggle to provide information to participants regarding how to submit the final project. That is why I created a list of points which provide complete information regarding submission. This points have been shared with over 10+ hackathons, and I call them the "Submission Mantra" - Random name 😆.
Important Announcement regarding Project Submission!! 1) Deadline for project submission is mention time. We won't be able to entertain any requests after that. Project submission would be on Devfolio.
2)https://guide.devfolio.co/during-hackathon/submissions-on-devfolio
Check this to know more on how to submit a project on Devfolio.
3) Demo video is mandatory (time limit max 2-3 minutes). You need to explain about a working prototype.
4) Presentation (ppt) is mandatory along with the demo video. You can upload your ppt to GitHub repo, upload it to drive and share link on Devfolio link section. You can also add the link to ppt on Readme/About section on GitHub.
5) If you are working as a team only one person(Leader would be preferable) needs to submit, and mention the rest of his/her teammates on Devfolio itself.
6) Keep your video public and not private (you can keep it unlisted), upload on YouTube or whichever platform accepted by Devfolio (you can upload on drive and share link). For recording you can use any tool like Loom, OBS or whichever tool you want.
7) In the Demo video You need to explain each and everything about your project like what it does, how it works, what problem it solves, how to use it. Just writing down in the description won't work you need to explain in video itself.
8) Host the site (For software), upload your files on GitHub and share the repository link on Devfolio.
9) If you have not used any resources from our sponsors, then you can choose to submit for general category(1st, 2nd,3rd prize). Just tick the appropriate checkbox.
10) If you face any issues during submission, like the submission time is over, make sure to check your system time matches the Devfolio time.
This instructions can change as per the needs of hackathon organizers.
