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<span style="font-size:small;"><span class="s1">Hackathons are a great way to encourage students of all majors to work together and innovate. This wiki describes how to analyze your campus environment and create a hackathon tailored to your fit your school’s unique needs. The tips listed below describe how to seek out sponsors, find space for your event, and advertise to ensure as many students are informed as possible.</span></span>

<span style="font-size:small;">Hackathons can revolve around a single topic or platform. One way to begin to think of your hackathon subject is to analyze your campus or city. Does your school specialize in technology? What is your city’s main export? By starting with a familiar topic, an entry point is created for students to come and hypothesize about factors that influence their daily lives. Something to remember is not to make the topic too specific at risk of isolating potential participants.</span>

<span style="font-size:small;">[[File:UIF2.jpg]]</span>

<span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38;">The first step in finding an appropriate space for your hackathon is estimating the number of people you will have participating. An incentive for early preregistration will help get people committed to your event and help you plan your space needs.</span>

= Materials =

<span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Hackathons need funding, and the number one way to get funding is to acquire sponsors. Potential sponsors would most likely be local companies already in contact with the school. In many cases, the companies will reach out themselves once they catch word of an event going on. This is very good for the Hackathon host, as more local companies hear word of the event happening and want to be a part of it themselves. To secure the sponsors, however, one has to build their “brand,” or reputation, with the companies. In other words, take time and make yourself known. It can’t be expected to make one phone call and have a paying sponsor. Make sure that you can effectively “sell” your event to them and make it a worthwhile investment for them. This may take a few phone conversations and maybe an interview toward the end, but if they are interested enough to keep contact after the initial conversation, odds are in your favor of gaining a sponsor.</span>

<p style="text-align: center;">[[File:Sponsor.png]]</p>

<span style="font-size: 14px; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Knowing </span><span style="font-size: 14px; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">who</span><span style="font-size: 14px; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to market your hackathon to is just as important as how you market. Computer science, communications, science, and business majors are all broad categories that make good foundations for targeting your promotional efforts. However, it is important to remember that innovation can occur in any department or school and you should never limit yourself to a narrow segment of your institution’s students.</span>

<span><span style="font-size: 14px; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[[File:Hashtag example.png|center|Hashtag example.png]]</span></span>

<span style="font-size: 14px; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After the hackathon weekend is over, some teams might be interested in continuing to work in their venture. There are some grants a</span><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">vailable for student teams working in commercializing technologies by VentureWell, a high education nonprofit that runs the E-Team Program.</span>