Exchange

Practical advice from industry experts

- Jon Yablonski and Aashni Shah

Any advice on running a hackathon?

Falak Gonzalez, New Hampshire, US AS: Running a hackathon is exhilarating! You definitely need a lot of energy and very good project management. I found it best to mentally compartmentalise the different parts of the event going on, for example catering, sponsors, volunteers and venue This helped with focus and keeping things on track. I also assigned a lead to each of those roles, so that there was always a go-to person for that role.

My best piece of advice: even if things go wrong on the day – and they inevitably do – hack yourself a solution. We had so many issues at every single one of our events but while our team was freaking out, the hackers were busy hacking away and never knew!

I think the thing I didn’t anticipate is how draining it would be. You definitely need to take breaks throughout the event, have shifts so that people can get that break and make sure you’re eating well!

Philanthropy

STAYING ON TRACK

I want to use my dev skills for a good cause but I’m worried about overcommitting. Any advice on avoiding ‘mission creep’?

Neel Schwartz, Norwich, UK