Avoid These Five Pitfalls at Your Next Hackathon
A successful hackathon comes together as a burst of creative energy and spontaneous problem-solving — but behind it is solid planning and months of hard work to get the challenge and the details locked down. Failure to define a challenge that is meaningful to the sponsor and appropriate to solve within the set time limit is one of five problems that can doom a hackathon, wasting time and resources. The article is adapted from Sparks for Innovation (Columbia University Press, 2025).
