| description |
|---|
The tooling and software needed to run a Hackathon |
Pick a communication platform and ensure your hackers join it. Slack and Discord are two of the most popular. We recommend Discord for your event because of their free voice chat capabilities.
Before joining and once on the platform, make hackers know that their behavior and actions are still subject to MLH Code of Conduct, and to be respectful. Digital spaces can increase harassment as people are hidden behind a computer, so it is key to make sure your attendees know you still take this seriously.
- Team-Formation: Channel for hackers to form teams
- Ask-Organizers: Channel for hackers to ask organizers any questions that come up throughout the event.
- Introductions: Channel for hackers to introduce themselves. Have your team set the norm for this by introducing yourselves.
- Random: Channel for anything that isn't hackathon related.
- Ask-Mentors: Channel for hackers to connect with mentors when they need help on their projects.
- Mentors-Internal: Channel for mentors to talk with each other and with organizers.
- Admin: Channel for your organizing team. We recommend creating an admin voice channel as well!
Digital hackathons depend entirely on the different you wish to choose to host them over. Making or breaking your hackathon will highly depend on the flexibility and the experience of using the platforms and how well your team is able to manage it. We highly recommend organizers to be aware of the different platforms they might be using so as to avoid any difficulties or edge cases on the day of.
Your team may choose to stream different aspects of the event including the opening ceremony, workshops, mini-events, and closing ceremony.
You may consider streaming to:
Tools like Streamyard make it super simple to stream to multiple places at once.
{% content-ref url="../../organizer-resources/logistics-resources/streamyard.md" %} streamyard.md {% endcontent-ref %}
If you are running events that require attendees to join a video call, make sure you choose a platform that will allow for the correct number of attendees.
Some popular options are:
- Zoom
- Google Meets (allows for up to 100 participants)
- Google Hangouts (allows for up to 25 participants using video)
- Discord Video Calls