Take it Back-athon

Taking back hackathons, focussing on pure fun and delight.

Las Vegas Chapter pilot event a write up of the Las Vegas event

What's going on?

We're noticing a bit of a decline in the amount of hackathons that are held in the original spirit of what we think they should be. We believe hackathons should be fun, frivolous, and without a heavy agenda.

Specifically, these are a few things we're seeing that are a little discouraging:

People of minority are often still not participating in high or even moderate numbers
Large corporations holding hackathons with crazy T&C's such as owning project IP.
Limited clarity &&|| distinction between startup/business focussed hackathons, and 'for fun' hackathons.
Exploitation of participants by attendees who want free labour on their existing apps/ideas.
Excessive focus on project 'monetization' and 'investment potential'
Judging criteria not being adhered to by judges
Demo time is not valued or celebrated as the magic part of the event
Safe rather than silly
Absurdly large cash prizes that attract a different crowd and promote less than friendly behaviour

Isn't this just your opinion?

Absolutely. We're reaching out to those who feel the same, and would like to help do something about the above sadness. We're not saying that startup themed hackathons don't have their place. We just miss the good old days of hacking around on things that bring joy and sometimes confusion.

Who is 'we'?

We are @noopkat and @makenai.

What is 'Take it Back-athon?'

Take it Back-athon is a tongue-in-cheek name we came up with to rally the Captain Silly's and Marquise Ridiculous' together in order to hold non-corporate, non-startup hackathons events where they live.

Tell me more.

Well, we kinda want to leave the rest up to you. But to get you started, here are some ideas below on how to throw a Take it Back-athon hackathon:

Award humorous prizes in categories such as 'least likely to be successful on Kickstarter' or 'most gratuitous use of API's'
Encourage attendees to consider their audience to be the other hackers in the room, less so the sponsors and judges
Pick non-traditional and varied judges: artists, rabbis, janitors, poets, moms, zoo keepers - mix it up!
Provide some fun themes to get people thinking about what they would make
Hide your sponsors. You should find prize sponsors, but make sure the main focus is not on them. Avoid favoritism and bonus points by not judging for categories like "best use of Yoyodyne API”. This is easier if your prize sponsor is say.. sky diving.
Bring back the demos, less polish needed on those slides
Bring in some inspiring mentors to get people excited
Organise a fun icebreaking event the night before (with mentor demo time)
Hack on anything. It doesn’t have to be software. You can make a robot. Or design a board game in illustrator, or compose a love song about cats and capybaras
Encourage those with limited coding and design skills to attend (they will learn so much)
Create an inclusive and mandatory code of conduct. JSConf folks have a great one here for your reference, and a blog post from Chris Williams about the topic . Eyeo Festival also have an excellent one here. the Ada Initiative is also a fabulous resource for this.
Related to the above point, find minorities and extend an invite. This means anyone who is not a white, cisgender, hetero, able bodied, middleclass/upperclass man. Give away free tickets to minority participants. Educate those who try on the 'special treatment' protest.

What now?

Feel free to fork or pull request. This is hopefully just the beginning. Let us know if you have any ideas to contribute, and call us out if we are missing important topics or if we've said something shitty. We're nice people, we promise.

jonmarkgo / take-it-backathon