Maybe you’re here because you understand how difficult it is to select a winner from a hackathon; this Top 20 Upcoming Hackathon Judging Opportunities will put you through the right path on getting your answers.
Although evaluating a hackathon is difficult in and of itself, there are several rules you can follow to select deserving hackathon winners.
Some traditional hackathons typically use the antiquated method of sticking with demos when selecting the winners.
In this kind of project, teams present their work to mentors, judges, and other participants. When you’re running a hackathon, not only do you have to come up with the theme, challenges, and tools for the hackathon, but you also need to judge the winners.
How does one know which group presented a solution better? Is it one with the most innovation? Is it one that looks the most interesting? Well, those are just some of the many criteria to have to pick the right hackathon winners!
So, as a judge, here are Top 20 upcoming Hackathon Judging Opportunities you need to be applying to judge a hackathon properly:
To assist you in selecting the best of the best, we’ll show you how to evaluate hackathons of all sizes in this post.
Read also – 10 Best Hackathon Ideas for Software Developers in 2025
20+ Upcoming Hackathon Judging Opportunities in 2025
1. Determine Whether the Developed Program or Product Adds Value to a Company
One of the first questions you should ask when evaluating a tool, feature, or product is if it will increase sales and offer value to the company.
The winning group should be able to provide the concept that will help a firm grow. Examine, assess, and compare the teams to the existing market in order to make this determination.
The proposal has the ability to grow and build our firm, making it a sure win, if it would bring in money or help solve a business problem.
2. Determine whether the tool or product will have an impact on both a small and large scale.
It doesn’t really impress someone when you’re dealing with an unoriginal notion, does it? For this reason, determining whether the team’s concept is unique is among the most crucial factors to consider.
In addition to having an effect on the business in a smaller setting, originality can reach a wider audience.
3. Determine whether the tool is novel, practical, and realistic.
The concept may be original and cool, but it’s also important to make sure it’s feasible. Verifying this information will allow you to determine whether the team can successfully implement this product in the real world and whether people will gain from this innovation.
Furthermore, being able to determine whether a project is feasible will enable the team members to develop a strategy for actually developing the product and putting it to the test in the marketplace.
4. Does It Provide Businesses With Any Benefits?
Even though the goal of a hackathon is to have fun, you should take into account the fact that several of the participants have business-related ideas.
Do they have a great suggestion, for example, to increase productivity? Businesses trying to optimise their workflow may find that interesting.
Can the customer experience be made better? Additionally, it’s a useful option that would benefit companies. It’s likely that you’re searching for something that will be useful to businesses.
5. Do people find it surprising?
Is There a “Wow?” reaction? You’ll need to use this in your evaluation if you want people to say, “Wow,” It’s easy.
Take a look at the hackathon participants’ impressive skills. Many people would likely remark, “wow,” at the prospect of their solution if it addressed a problem that many people face.
But, if the solution is designed for a specific demographic, it’s unlikely that many people will respond “wow.”
6. Is It Possible to Do It in the Actual World?
You should look for hacks that are useful enough to be applied in the actual world when evaluating them.
Like using an iPhone app, for instance, if the answer is tidy, it is undoubtedly useful enough. Of course, other apps have a more restricted usage, such as those designed just for use in hospitals.
However, you will undoubtedly be interested in the hackathon participants‘ practical solution if they have one that can be applied in the real world.
7. Was That the Most Creative Approach?
Participants in the hackathon are required to present you with the most innovative solution.
However, how can that be ascertained? This is a question you might ask yourself: how have the hackathon participants resolved this issue? For example, they receive a lot of points and can win the hackathon if they have solved a challenge that you haven’t considered.
Therefore, you can quickly identify the most creative solution by asking yourself, “What are the ways in which the hackathon associates have solved the problem?” and then figuring out the answer.
8. Teamwork & Collaboration:
We urge you to create colorful teams. As such we will reward points for teams that are not entirely comprised of coworkers. After all, we want to use this time to make new relationships too.
Working together with other engineers, designers, and business experts helps you build relationships that will help your career long after the event is over.
These connections may provide doors to employment, mentoring, or joint ventures, broadening your network of contacts and introducing you to a range of viewpoints.
Furthermore, taking part in these activities usually calls for cooperation, which can help you develop your ability to collaborate with others and learn how to work well with individuals who have different backgrounds and methods.
Read also – 10 Cool Fintech Hackathon Ideas
9. Educating
Did the group push themselves? Did they attempt to acquire new knowledge? Which technologies, APIs, products, or techniques did you employ that you were previously unaware of?
To assist you get the most out of competitions like that of hackathon, we are aware of best practices in competition design. You can better grasp how to handle opposing viewpoints and ideas by participating in competitions.
You can learn to work together with people who have very different personalities. You can develop the ability to control subjectivity in their daily life. Additionally, they can improve their ability to assess and measure hazards. Our reactions to competitions vary, which affects how they will experience these advantages.
10. Open-source:
Is your project active on Bitbucket or GitHub? Is it accessible? Did you make use of any other excellent methods that were already in place? We urge you to create an application that is simple for other people to utilise.
The other extreme is open source; is it too much to argue that individuals collaborate for mutual gain? Is a solution that is open source free? Not at all.
When relied upon, it requires a support function, must execute on something, and typically has to be implemented and subsequently developed.
These all have a financial cost. Maybe it comes down to necessity, practicality, and the fact that working together is frequently challenging when no one wants to take the lead. Is cooperation the antithesis of rivalry?
11. Concentrate on only one issue.
The easiest part of winning a hackathon is actually the technology. Reducing the challenge to a single core issue and coming up with a solution accounts for 90% of your work.
Remember the following equation and make it your mantra to help you stay focused, an idea is equal to a clearly stated problem plus your plan of action.
When facing an issues in hackathon , no matter how minor. However, your ability to concentrate on solutions rather than issues is what makes you unique.
It’s simple to get caught up on the negative aspects of a problem, but by changing our viewpoint and thinking creatively, we can come up with solutions we hadn’t even thought of before.
This method is founded on the straightforward idea that our reality is shaped by our ideas. And makes you more creative and makes you stand out and win the Judges heart.
12. Make your message more precise.
What important point do you wish to make clear to your panel of judges? How can you make that point clearly and effectively? Don’t squander your limited time on coding and pitching by making or showcasing login windows or other unnecessary components.
Focus solely on the components that make up your pitch and get straight to the point.
What is the CORE of your problem and the CORE of your solution? That is the crucial question to ask yourself. You should use that as a guide when presenting it to your judges.
13. Take advantage of the timer
You have only twenty-four hours to make the most of it. To keep on course, adhere to these dos and don`ts.
dos:
- Don’ts Pay attention to the MVP (Minimum Viable Product).
- Sort your work into multiple versions.
- Examine the libraries and APIs that are available beforehand.
- Locate and select reliable libraries with strong documentation that are under development. To make sure they function, install them and test them.
- You can use pre-made wireframes or mock-ups in a lot of hackathons. In order to avoid wasting time during the hackathon, make sure you utilise these and make use of them beforehand.
- Judges have score cards, so pay attention to the judging criteria.
- Keep your hackathon’s requirements at the forefront of everything you do, regardless of what they are.
- Pay close attention to how your prototype and solution will compare to those standards.
Don’ts
- It is worth repeating. Avoid wasting time on pointless things like footers, social media buttons, thank-you pages, confirmation pages, and login screens.
- Avoid writing elegant code: You don’t have the luxury of correcting indentation or adding aesthetic touches.Spend less time searching for ideal data sets.
- Focus on delivering the message and faking the portions that aren’t essential to the purpose.
Read also – Top 12 Virtual Hackathon Platforms in 2025
14. Practice your pitch
You just have a few minutes to present your work throughout the 24-hour hackathon. Avoid wasting all of your work with a poor pitch.
Spend ample time honing your pitch and getting ready for any queries the judges might have. Before evaluating, a committed team member should practise constantly in the last several hours.
This individual should respond to all of the judges’ enquiries when it comes time to make your pitch.
15. Put Together the Correct Team
Having the proper team involves two things. First and foremost, they ought to be a group of individuals with whom you get along well.
You will probably have to spend up to twenty-four hours with them nonstop after all. It will be easier for a team with strong chemistry to operate under pressure, overcome obstacles, and create something amazing.
Seek out team members with diverse interests and abilities. Your closest friends who are all software developers might choose to sign up with you.
16. If you don’t prepare, then get ready to fail.
If you can do anything before the hackathon, do it in order to turn this Benjamin Franklin quote into anything useful.
Naturally, the hackathon is the only time you can start working on your idea. On the other hand, this concept can be generated in advance.
However, it is maybe the most crucial element to get correct. Before your hackathon begins, why not do a brainstorming session?
17. Become in agreement
Your team has an idea to work on after the hackathon has been going on for a few hours.
Is it time to split up the work and begin? Not so quick. Keep in mind that working independently is not the same as working alone.
The former suggests that you are alone and not in agreement with the other members of the team.
Inconsistencies in the final solution may arise from team members’ somewhat varied interpretations of a particular project
aspect being accentuated when they separate to work alone. Teams inadvertently cause this issue, which they only become aware of once it is too late.
Setting a clear aim is the simplest method to avoid this. Each team member can share a same vision of the finished product when the goal is well-defined.
18. Efficiency = Simplicity
Choose succinct, easily accessible code rather than wasting time on lengthy, complex code. Your UI is no different.
Create something straightforward and uncomplicated instead than intricate. This can be used in other areas of your project.
Additionally, keeping your idea simple will make it easier for the judges to grasp, and in general, judges tend to give projects that they understand higher points.
The code you uploaded does not receive as much attention as you would like, I can assure you. In the short amount of time the judges will have to make a decision, seeing a functional prototype was more crucial than going through lines of code.
You should have ample time to hone your pitch now that you know how important it is to choose simplicity. And with that, we have our next bit of wisdom.
19. Remember the pitch!
Hackathon projects receive scores based on a variety of factors. Nevertheless, your primary chance to make an impact on the judges is during the pitch.
Furthermore, even though other criteria are portrayed as mutually exclusive, the pitch might have an indirect impact on their ratings.
The judges won’t be able to appreciate the sophistication of your team’s most advanced prototype if you don’t show them all of its features because of a poor pitch.
As a result, your prototype and pitch will both receive low marks. It is generally recommended that 20% of the hackathon’s total hours be devoted to pitch development.
In the end, try not to jam this in. It will also assist the team concentrate on key tasks that will be demonstrated in the presentation if everyone in the team already knows how to pitch the project.
Read also – How Dratech is Helping the Tech World Grow Through Hackathons and Awards
20. Working with zombies isn’t enjoyable.
Although they are fun, hackathons are cognitively taxing! Don’t be scared to take pauses. If you have followed the previous advice, you ought to have time to do so. You should avoid working yourself to the bone. Food, water, and rest can make a big difference.
Hackathons could include competitions, entertaining booths, or side events in addition to breaks for the necessities.
Spend some time relaxing and enjoying all that the hackathon has to offer. You might return with a breakthrough after these breaks, who knows.
You and your colleagues can also communicate during breaks. By doing this often, you can reassure all team members that everyone is still in agreement.
Furthermore, any issues that have come up can be resolved. Spend some time getting to know your teammates if you are joining a new squad.
FAQs
Who can be a hackathon judge?
Hackathon judges typically include industry professionals, entrepreneurs, investors, academics, and subject-matter experts. Anyone with relevant experience in technology, product development, or innovation can be considered.
What does a hackathon judge do?
Judges evaluate projects based on set criteria like innovation, functionality, impact, feasibility, and presentation. They provide feedback, score submissions, and help select winners.
Do hackathon judges get paid?
While many judging roles are voluntary, especially in educational or nonprofit events, some high-profile or corporate-sponsored hackathons may offer honorariums or cover expenses.
How do I become a hackathon judge?
You can apply through hackathon organizers, platforms like Devpost or HackerEarth, or by networking with tech communities and expressing interest in judging future events.
What are the benefits of judging a hackathon?
Judging allows you to connect with emerging talent, stay current with tech trends, give back to the community, and gain visibility as a thought leader in your industry.
Conclusion
Hackathon judging opportunities offer a unique chance to engage with innovation, mentor rising talent, and shape impactful solutions across industries.
Whether you’re a tech leader, investor, or educator, serving as a judge provides valuable insights and influence while supporting the next generation of developers, designers, and entrepreneurs.
