The document outlines the organization and outcomes of internal hackathons held by Nithish Raghunandanan, highlighting their motivation, structure, and resources utilized. It details the schedule of events, judging criteria, and showcases projects developed by participants, emphasizing the importance of collaboration and innovation. Feedback from the events indicated significant engagement and enjoyment among participants, fostering closer teamwork and diverse project outcomes.

1. Learnings from Organizing Internal
Hackathons
DevRelCon Earth 2020
Nithish Raghunandanan
@nithishr

2. About Me
● Former Developer Advocate
at KI labs
● Tons of Hackathon
experience
● Organize an Internal
Hackathon

3. Motivation
● Work on Topics outside
Projects
● Collaborate with People from
other teams
● Learn / Try something new

4. Organization
● 2 Days (24-28 Hours to Hack)
● Teams of 2 to 5
● No Theme
● Remote Teams from Lisbon
● Close to External Hackathons
● Demo to Judges (Internal &
External)

5. Resources
● Cloud Compute Resources (AWS,
GCP, Azure)
● Hardware (Raspberry Pi, Sensors,
etc)
● Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)
● Ensure Network Compatibilities!

6. Ideation
● Wiki & Slack to Share / Discuss Ideas
● Pre Event Idea Pitching / Team Formation

7. Schedule
Day 1
08:30 Welcome & Introduction
09:00 Start Hacking
12:30 Lunch
19:00 Dinner
Hacking floor open all night
Day 2
Continue Hacking
13:00 - Hack Submission Deadline
13:00 - 14:00 Lunch
14:00 - 15:30 Demos
15:30 - 18:00 Internal Meeting
18:15 - 18:30 Hackathon Results
18:30 - 20:00 Dinner & Drinks

8. Judging
Criteria
● Technical Impressiveness
#wow_factor
● Polish #user_experience
● Novelty #surprise_us
● Demos #take_my_money
Details
Jury
● C-Levels from KI Group
● Friends from Local Tech
Ecosystem
● Audience

9. Figures
10-14 Teams
24-28 Hours
40-50 Participants
Munich + Lisbon

11. Beer Bot
● Slack bot to keep the
office hydrated
● Raspberry Pi + Camera
● Inventory & Alerts

12. What Garbage?
● Segregation of Waste
(Paper / Not)
● Raspberry Pi + Motors
● iOS App

13. Delivery Boi
● Auto Notification of
Packages
● Raspberry Pi + Camera
for OCR
● Slack Bot

14. BRAN
● Facial Recognition for
Office Door (Hodor)
● Raspberry Pi + Camera
● Deep learning & classical
machine learning
approaches

15. Ideas
● Solve Common Problems
● Office Essentials
● Use of Hardware
● Open Source / Future Work

16. Food & Drinks are Important

19. Demos
● Swag 😍
● Small Prizes

20. Outcomes
● Great feedback 📈
● Cool & Diverse Projects 😎
● Requests from Clients 💰
● Regular half yearly slot 🚀
● Participants had Fun! ✌
Working closer
with the wider
team.
Opportunity to
work on
something
different
Great
participation
and demos
It was lots of
fun! Loved it

22. References
Projects
● KI Hacks 1
● KI Hacks 2
Blog Post
Nithish Raghunandanan
hi@nithishr.com
@nithishr