Hackathons & STEM Education for ATL

It would near be impossible to cover every aspect of what working in the hackathon, non-profit, and education space entails, but as a small snapshot, planning for a 1000+ in person event meant coordination with engineering, operations, marketing, and finance teams. We'd plan from 6 months to a year ahead. From the outside, you'd probably think the main things are having a website, having an interesting theme (this is kind of a must in the MLH hackathon world), having tracks to innovate in (like cybersecurity or supply chain problems, for example), and having sponsors with cool prizes.

Back of house however, this meant designing, building, and hosting not just a website but also a registration and project scoring system in-house. This meant branding and theming not just for a website, but for a series of needs such as sponsorship materials, social media and on-campus advertisement, physical swag, prizes, and oh boy -- how do I even begin to unpack the physical event space?

‍Have you ever had to decide how to position 100 light-up-inflatable-mushrooms because you decided to throw an Alice in Wonderland themed event? Or coordinate a shipping flat of lightsabers provided by Disney for a Star Wars themed outdoor unwind activity? Or tried to balance a sloshing literal cauldron of butter chicken while moving up a loading ramp? Hackathon organizers will know what kind of pain I'm talking about. Beyond visual and ux designer, planning a hackathon could be likened to throwing a 1000+ attendee wedding.

I will forever admire our Operations team that coordinated a difficult supply chain to bring in delicious food from many local restaurants and our Finance team for helping us balance the books.

And even then, that's just the surface of it.

I’m extremely passionate about this area and I’d love to talk about it more in detail with anyone who’s interested or is looking to start a similar movement in their community. Hackathons level the playing field and growing barrier of entry to understanding complex technology that has become the infrastructure upon which our world runs. Technology can be fun, and should be for EVERYONE. Working in the hackathon and education space is extremely rewarding, despite how daunting it may be. We’ve learned a lot in our time here and have a number of ideas for ways to keep this going beyond the college space. There's also much to be said about managing a team, working through burnout, and learning to communicate to move forward. Together though, I believe we can continue to drive change and create diverse, inclusive, and equitable spaces in technology.