Over the weekend I joined HuddleHive's Women in Tech Hackathon Party sponsored by Starling bank and our team built PathFinder.
What is a Hackathon?
I like HuddleHive's definition: "An event in which a large number of people meet to engage in collaborative product creation".
Basically design and demo a working solution. The goal isn’t perfection—it’s a credible, compelling proof‑of‑concept that solves a real problem.
What do I do?
- Register early, read the rules
- Team up (builder, designer, pitcher) or go solo
- Pick a challenge you care about or know
- Build only the MVP, backlog the rest
- Mock data, ship the happy path first
- Script a 2–3 min demo
- Present to the judges
How to win?
- Solve a real, sponsor‑aligned pain
- Quantify impact (time, cost, accuracy)
- Tell a tight story: problem → solution → impact → ask/cta
- Demo: working, clean UI, realistic data, backup video
- Submit artifacts: README, screenshots, 60–90s video, live link