What is a hackathon anyways?

tag-cloud-hackathon

With StartupLive going into it’s second evening as we type this, and the hype for Hack{Cyprus} growing each week, we thought it’s about time someone explains how these hackathon things work…

Strictly speaking a hackathon is the coming together of people to build a computer program/system/company.

However in the startup circles, it includes more and more people and may or may not actually involve hardware/software or even the internet.

So… this is the basic process of a hackathon (some brands/version may differ):

  1. Ideas are described in front of all attendees by whomever has one (people can attend without having their own idea).
  2. Ideas are then voted for and people can join teams around them.
  3. The mission is to build the idea into a business/working-prototype or as close to one as possible.
  4. Mentors are there to help, guide and assist the teams.
  5. Experience is gained by everyone involved, be they programmers or designers or business people.

Basically, it’s an adrenaline-packed crash-course into turning and idea into ‘something more’… And in Cyprus, we need more of this ‘something more’.