I’ve never been to a hackathon… what will the weekend be like?
The Code for the Kingdom Global Hackathon is coming up October 2nd-4th and many people are wondering what it’s going to be like. We know 36 hours of intense product building sounds intimidating, but it’s completely worth it. You’re going to meet skilled kingdom-minded technologists, designers and entrepreneurs. You’re going to push your skills to the max and grow and learn faster than you’ve ever had to before. You’ll be amazed at what can be produced in the intensely compressed weekend and enjoy a level of camaraderie and friendship that can only be forged in the fires of late nights and shared mission.
Every one of the 14 participating cities has a slightly different schedule, but here’s a general overview of what you can expect.
Doors open at 7pm. You get to meet people, share dinner and talk shop. Some cities may open with worship. Around 8pm, the main event begins with organisers sharing their dreams for the event and committing the time to the Lord in prayer.
Sponsors and mentors will be introduced and challenges will be presented by their champions. These official challenges often have sponsors supporting them and everyone is welcome to invent solutions to address them. After the official challenges are presented, everyone who wants to can line up and have 2-3 minutes to pitch their ideas. Then everyone breaks out into a marketplace-like setting where participants can talk to challenge champions and people who pitched ideas and decide which team they’d like to join.
What if you don’t have an idea or don’t find a team? Don’t worry, the organisers are there to help and serve you. One year at a Code for the Kingdom event had three people who had no idea or team and they came together to build a prize-winning app that helps kids build Scripture-based crossword puzzles!
Once everyone is settled into a team and project, it’s off to the races. No one has to stay awake the entire time, but if you choose to, there are going to be plenty of energy drinks to keep you going. You can also bring a sleeping bag, roll mats, or find a random sofa to sleep on as needed.
Throughout the event, there will be in-person and virtual mentors available to help you on everything from ideation, coding, pitching, and everything in between. Don’t be shy to ask for their help–they are there to serve! Even if they can’t immediately help you, they probably know someone who can.
Saturday morning starts with breakfast at 8:30ish. Please take a break! Breakfast, lunch and dinner are times to reconnect with people, hear announcements, sponsored talks, pray and get refreshed.
Sunday is the time to wrap up and start honing your pitches. There will be 30-45 minutes set aside for a brief worship service, hearing from God’s word and praying together. There should be about an hour afterwards to put the finishing touches on your projects before the lunch deadline.
After lunch everyone comes together to share and celebrate what we built over the weekend. Each team that wants to can sign up to give a 3 minute show and tell of their project, followed by a 2 minutes Q&A with the judges. You can have one team member represent or everyone on stage. After all the teams have presented, there will be a short break while the judges adjourn to decide on the winners. While this is happening, every participant also gets to vote on their favorite project, which will be recognized with a people’s choice award. Then the judges returned, the winners are announced and everyone goes home tired, but happy and thankful for the opportunity to do what they love on projects that advance God’s Kingdom with brothers and sisters.
If this has piqued your interest you can pick up tickets for the London event on the hackathon page, or if you are interested in the other global events head over the Code for the Kingdom website.
This post was co-written by Chris Lim (@meritandgrace) and James Doc (@jamesdoc). Chris one of the organisers of the Seattle event and James is part of the team organising the London event.
