how to get sponsorship for hackathon


You are one of 10-30 companies who will be presenting one after the other, as the hackers sit there thinking, how many more of these do we have to listen to before we can start hacking. If you cant win them over in 2-3 minutes you probably need to re-work your pitch. On your individual event wiki page, use the language that will be used in the presentations. How have you done things at your school? SIGHPC offers competitive Fellowships, Awards, and Scholarships, as well as access to the latest HPC research, to students and professionals who are pursuing careers in HPC. and who do I talk to to learn more. In the future, you will be organizing more hackathons. Each hackathon coordinator generally battles to track down new leads for sponsorships for a hackathon. DemoCamps and Hackathons anywhere in the world. Here are some tricks that every hackathon organizer should keep in mind when finding sponsors for a hackathon. the event wiki site. by Manali Singh | May 12, 2022 | Event Sponsorship | 0 comments. I ask so when *can* we expect the list of teams, okay, and will closing ceremonies be delayed so we still have the same amount of time or judging? and deal with it.

to have access to the location. Companies gain exposure by giving tech talks about their APIs and sending their developers to come hang out/answer questions/participate as judges. What is a hackathon? Spinoff companies from your university/department. I can complain later in a feedback email post-event. You need to write a sponsorship prospectus. XSEDE provides the expertise to ensure that researchers can make the most of the supercomputers and tools. or is there a theme such as social justice, diversity, or thinking green that affects scorting? This is an opportunity to find out whether your documentation is complete, whether there are features missing, or whether you ahve the right tutorials to help a beginner. Create a 'reach' sponsorship level that you don't expect to get: for us, this was the $5,000 'IPO' sponsorship level: certainly, fund-raising would have been easier if we got an IPO-level sponsor, but even without one we made the $2,500 sponsorship level look cheap in comparison. We also encourage organizers Dont forget some of the extras that come with it. If it is a numbered system what is the layout? What can you do that will a) wake up the audience from their stupor and b) stand out from the other sponsors? Assuming the company responds, send a longer email detailing the exact value proposition and the possible ways that a company could get involved (sponsor a custom prize, bring a judge, etc).

I've heard the argument that charging money filters out people who aren't serious about hacking; honestly though, not sleeping for two days is enough of a filter as it is. or will teams go to numbered tables and you receive a list of teams whose tables you need to visit? Sponsors will be acknowledged on the DemoCamp & Hackathon wiki and at the party itself. Decide if that time limit is for the presentation and they get extra time for Q&A or if Q&A needs to fit into that original time limit. SIGHPC's mission is to help spread the use of HPC, help raise the standards of the profession, and help ensure a rich and rewarding career for people involved in the field. February People also leave and someone else fills their position. Energy drink companies are the cleanest example of this, but there are others: what sort of products are trying to sell their goods to engineering students/hackers and would be interested in free advertising in exchange for their goods? Even when I am angry with them, I dont yell at them. 1) Tech Companies (Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo, etc). Hackathons can't run without sponsors, and getting sponsorship is one of the hardest challenges you will face, but below you will find a few helpful comments on how to get started. Such innovations can benefit society in multiple ways.

Let me know if this is something you may be interested in and I'd be happy to send your more details or set up a phone call. How much time do you have to judge? In this post Ill outline the critical success factors to hackathon sponsorship. If you need the winners to fill out forms, where should you meet them or take them to fill out the paperwork so they can have their prizes. each demo to no more than 15 minutes. company office), provide a screen and projector, and arrange for refreshments. Promote your event to local user groups, such as JUGs, Google user groups, Oracle user groups, etc. Ive done it by singing a song, Ive done it with a parody of We will Rock You getting the audience to clap and stomp along (You need, You need Azure!) The Manchester Computer Science society has a public script for doing contract generation based on templates, which might be helpful if you are doing a lot. Find event sponsors work on maintaining and building long trustable relationships with all the sponsors you have met. Recruiting Penn Engineers: Getting intro emails right. For tech companies, sponsoring a hackathon address both of those issues. STAR is pleased to support the HPC in the City Hackathon, to increase the diversity of talent and range of disciplines that have access to HPC, and broaden the pool of applicants for jobs in our field. Software engineers/hackers are in high demand. You or the hackathon organizers? Dont be afraid to step out of your comfort zone a bit (trust me my legs always shake when I sing but I get hackers at the next hackathon ask if I am singing another song), Presenter 9 of 16 during opening ceremonies. Your judges and mentors may appreciate having the criteria ahead of time as well. The bigger the company you contact, the more used they are to similar requests for sponsorship and the more likely they are to have a budget for it. <> Try this out. By embedding intelligence in the cloud, network, edge and every kind of computing device, we unleash the potential of data to transform business and society for the better. The DurHack19 Sponsorship Deck can be found here. (though to be clear, I do not want a full time job managing all your hackathon sponsorships :)). new grads vs first years) what are the pre-reqs (specific skills, degree type), why is your company awesome (in ONE slide with max 3 bullet points!) Items such as give-aways, prizes, and SGCI provides services, resources, community support, and education for creating and sustaining science gateways. Tagged: Advocacy, developer relations, Evangelism, hackathon, hackathon prizing, hackathon sponsorship, how to prepare for a hackathon, planning, recruiting at hackathons.

Are you providing any travel reimbursement? I tell the hackers how long they have and I put my phone right on the table with the timer running so there are no surprises. You are responsible for providing a screen and projector for the demos. This is a first in a (hopefully) series of posts on how to host a student hackathon, based on my experience with PennApps, as well as from participating in HackNYand PhillyGameJamand the hackathons at Facebook over the summer. Discuss with your hackathon team members, who they know can sponsor the hackathon, and make a spreadsheet with all the details of potential sponsors for a hackathon. You can find tons of examples in the MLHs repository. In kind sponsorship is very useful still, as it will help cut your costs but remember that you do also need enough sponsors who can provide cash. help cover the cost of refreshments, snacks, and room rental only. Every hackathon has its swag-backs and customized t-shirts. I do NOT recommend putting them under the table at the booth. A link to the current list of DemoCamps and Hackathons already scheduled can be found on my team because I always created a hackathon guide to distribute to all the people supporting me on site letting them know all kinds of logistics: parking, phone numbers, swag distribution rules, judging criteria, maps, hackathon schedules, etc Sponsoring a hackathon is a lot of work, especially if you are sponsoring a prize, dont underestimate the effort. If you would like to organize a camp or a hackathon, you choose the place, set the time, organize the venue (maybe a local pub or High performance computing (HPC) is all about scale and speed. An example contract with terms removed can be seen here. Venture Capitalists have two ways to gain from hackathons: as above, they are able to benefit from helping their portfolio companies recruit from the hackathon talent pool for summer or new-grad positions. (Check for a culture fund!).

With CloudyCluster you can easily create HPC/HTC jobs that will run on-prem or in CloudyCluster on GCP. I guarantee you the person organizing the judging for the hackathon is aware that they are late or that things are messed up. All the hackers want to know is whats the prize and what do I have to do to get it. Get a droplet today. Ask the hackathon organizers if there is a specific shipping company they work with for post-hackathon pick up. TACC Science & Technology Affiliates. Many Student Unions have a legal department dedicated to writing, amending, approving and enforcing contracts. Change), You are commenting using your Twitter account. Surprisingly, many sponsorships for a hackathon come from internal sources. A few could starting places when looking for sponsors: A good tool to keep track of all the potential sponsors is a CRM, e.g. They prefer sponsors to order off the menu, but chances are they are willing to accommodate custom sponsorships. This program is a way for TACC to share knowledge and expertise, as well as our advanced computing, data management and visualization technologies, to support their research & development activities, and their overall business processes. Promote the event on technical forums, such as. The event must be hosted in a location open to anyone. % Do you juggle or do cartwheels? How many entries will you receive?

This will help bring in people who do not feel comfortable using English. Join the SIGHPC Community today! You can hold the event any time during the two DemoCamp seasons (mid-May until mid-July or November until mid December). All in all, your school should be excited about having a Hackathon: it makes them look cutting-edge and tech-savvy. endobj Theme: the_minimum based on Jekyll-bootstrap. Globus is an initiative of the University of Chicago. Keep it short! Estimote Beacons real world context for your apps. When the shipping company shows up and cant figure out where the boxes are who can they call? I ran into an issue where one of our program managers did the sponsorship negotiation and sorted out all the shipping, and they emailed the list of teams to them instead of me during the hackathon, since they had been the primary point of contact. So, post-event engagement is extremely important for sponsorships. When speaking to tech companies, we made a point of getting either places that students are already excited to work for (Google being the prime example) or those with a reputation for treating developers well. How about a skit? We ask that as the organizer, you also act as the host of the party and introduce each presenter. helps establish your credibility as you raise funding. not every team is seen by every judge) then absolute scores may not be the fairest way to select a winner. Well, it is not easy to run such a big and live event, hence we need support from the team and others. Your university/department, most hackathons manage to get their Computer Science department (or equivalent) to put in some money, especially to help with a new hackathon. To be reimbursed for the hosting costs, the Eclipse Foundation requires that you post photos of your event, and then submit your attendee list, reimbursement form, and receipts withing sixty days of your event. Inspired by Moores Law, we continuously work to advance the design and manufacturing of semiconductors to help address our customers greatest challenges. Allow users to use email to sign up for your event rather than requiring them to edit the wiki page. Charging students isn't worth it, especially given the alternatives. Judging takes more work than you think. We included a line or two in the email about the exact value proposition (IE, "because you're recruiting on campus and this is a great way to get the word out about your company"), both to ensure that there was at least some hint of the value proposition and to avoid the impression that this was a mass email we were sending to hundreds of potential companies. There are typically four reasons to sponsor a hackathon: You may want to do all of the above, thats fine, but if you do, rank those goals! I was thinking that might make a great sponsor, since . At Penn, the Weiss Tech House is a hub for studententrepreneurshipand was a natural partner for us to work with, providing free space as well as offsetting all security-related costs. Ask for anything that can cut short your budget a little and get their name in the event. (LogOut/ The sponsorship funds are to Large companies Student developer programs. If your goal is getting developers to try your API, or use your software here are some options you may want to consider in your sponsorship agreement: If your goal is recruiting here are some options you may want to consider in your sponsorship agreement: With the new data protection rules, having the ability to email or otherwise contact a new developer is a becomng a more and more common goal. Attendees should bring their own laptops for hackathons. How many participants and audience you are expecting? Published: I found the quickest way to identify a winner was to have each judge use their personal scores to identify their top 2. Sponsoring a hackathon will cost anywhere from $500 to $50,000 depending on the prestige, size, and sponsorship level. If you found this post helpful, you may want to browse through the rest of my developer relations posts. Yes it was, I have been to many, many hackathons, and I have seen many, many things go wrong. Top level advertising on website and social media, Can send merch to be handed out at the event. events in different locations. In general, if there's a Technology/Innovation/Entrepreneurshiporganization or group at your university, sponsoring or being part of a hackathon is right up their alley and makes them look great. Will teams sign up for timeslots and come to your booth to present? Consulting, technology and outsourcing services. User experience? This is a core element of the hackathon budget, as well as how the hackathon runs overall. Any requests beyond this maximum will be placed on a waiting list. Connect with your science and technology schools/departments to vouch for you. This commit does not belong to any branch on this repository, and may belong to a fork outside of the repository. 3 0 obj if you dont get the reference, then I guess I am getting old ) Throw swag into the audience before you start. We have had Xboxes stolen Ask the hackathon organizers if there is a locked room where you can put the prizes.

They are stressed out trying to solve whatever the problem is.

endobj Ive done it by taking 30 seconds instead of 4 minutes.

food, beverages, and room rental up to $300 USD (to a maximum of $20 per person attending) for Eclipse member companies and up to $200 for non- member companies. i should not try to work when sick and brain not operating at 100 percent, just had to learn how to use recall feat, Every runner knows you earn this pose! How much prize money you are giving away if monetary prize. For some reason, something ALWAYS goes wrong when it gets to judging time. The service enables secure, reliable file transfer, sharing, and other services for managing data throughout the research lifecycle. Remember to try and tailor the initial email to the company and to think about what that company will want to get out of the hackathon, a local startup will want something very different to Microsoft. We recommend keeping The bank of the future, today. Include the sponsors who did not contribute to the particular event. These should be companies that have previously sponsored a hackathon. Posted July 2, 2019 by susanibach in Advocacy. the individual wiki page for each event, reachable from the. Microsoft offers a good one! To learn more about Intels innovations, go to newsroom.intel.com and intel.com. You will always have the latest computational technology at your fingertips. If your goal is to get developers to try your tech, chances are you are sponsoring a prize category. One of the popular sponsorship ideas is to give the unique event theme and provide your sponsors a space in your virtual theme. Please have attendees sign in with their names and email addresses, and send us this list with your expense form (see below). Its easy to look at a sponsorship package and say we can afford the silver package but dont forget all the hidden costs both in terms of time and money! Mobile oriented banking. here. Sponsors, even well-known ones, have bailed at the last minute before. We had acomplex systemfor levels of sponsorship that will probably evolve as we host more hackathons. ~{trA&N^" G%KUvn F%` -OOS'} c6 ' \=3{T$ t?$G~um^ X$$U zi,}Y /{V/2 t?VtU ZOj~9|8oE ` -HL4^M ZyrA^ `]. If your goal is the ability to contact hackers here are some options you may want to consider in your sponsorship agreement: If your goal is brand awareness here are some options you may want to consider in your sponsorship agreement: The great thing about hackathons is it gives you a chance to see what happens when a developer tries your product for the first time. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Here, event management software companies will be a great help to you. Even something as low as $5 or $10 creates a barrier to entry. At each level, offer substantially more value than at a level immediately below, a clear and obvious reason that adding more money is worthwhile. Hackathons are live events that involve programmers and participants competing to solve challenges. There are many such event engagement ideas to provide your attendees and sponsors with something to look forward to. You can also have no low tier sponsors but it's advised to have a couple. How do you contact that person if you cant find them? Before a team pitches to you, confirm the team name and whether they actually entered your prize category. I was at a hackathon with teams on two stories, it would have been useful to know ahead of time tables 56 and higher were upstairs. The Computer Science department or CS clubs may also be game for sponsoring if you need it. Make a trade with a group they provide publicity for the event, and you Try your luck with your team members, you will strongly get something out of it. Packing up the booth is usually pretty straightforward (assuming you didnt accidentally throw out a box you should have kept and you have packing tape), but what happens with those boxes now? Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) is an industry leader, creating world-changing technology that enables global progress and enriches lives. Hosting Hackathons: Getting Awesome Sponsors. Bespoke travel software passionately made in the UK. <> This is the beginning tier which will provide the stable amount of abilities within the hackathon. Each judge or judging group presents #1 hack, and we decide on a winner as a group.

Technical complexity? Your email address will not be published. Even if they won't be able to help substantially with your budget, they'll be able to help with things like convincing university facilities that it's perfectly fine to hold an event that requires keeping a building open overnight. Change). Organizing a hackathon costs money - even without paying for the space, large prizes and t-shirts, we spent nearly $3.5k (~$35/competitor) for PennApps Mobileon food and drinks over nearly 48 hours. For tech companies and VC firms, we had a far higher success rate for funding if we first got introduced through a student that had interned or was interning at the company or through a professor who had worked or done research with them. 8 0 obj xlu})8&EA such as Flickr, Picasa, or Shutterfly. Tip: You can send pre-event surveys and post-event feedback forms to build a trustworthy relationship with your sponsors and audiences. 2011. This can be done on the wiki, a web page, or any photo sharing site Originality? Your goal (or at least ours) is to maximize turn-out. As a sponsor they are invaluable. Identify which projects you'd like to hack on. Funding will be available for five camps/hackathons per country. GitHub is version control platform for the everyday coder. Please be sure to respect this deadline and send your paperwork in promptly. An open network for secure, decentralized communication. Leave a comment. Its a good idea to figure out as much of this as you can before you pack up the booth, especially since you are probably doing this at the same time as you are about to start judging. The problem is they are all ready to hack. I'm a CS Junior at ; we're putting together a hackathon () on . Here are the questions to ask yourself on how to get sponsors for a hackathon: These are the basic points you need to discuss with your team and make a realistic budget to seek sponsorships for a hackathon. AstonHack has done 3 tiers within different tier prices: This is the best tier which will provide the most amount of abilities in the hackathon. Sponsoring a hackathon can be expensive and time consuming, but its a great way to reach new developers. Give yourself 2-3 minutes to pitch to the audience.

The same is true with judges. <> Ahhh yes, memories of lugging four Xboxes across a university campus in sweltering heat to a different building! 7 0 obj This will help you maintain a long-term relationship with the company. SIGHPC is the first international group within a major professional society that is devoted exclusively to the needs of students, faculty, researchers, and practitioners in high performance computing. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. travel expenses are not covered. This has become a trend and you cannot ignore it. I was famous(infamous?) Copyright Eclipse Foundation. If you are looking for help with your developer relations work or you are interested in having me speak at your event, reach out on Twitter or LinkedIn. The HPC jobs can be easily configured to support many instance types including GPU, Preemptible and any number of memory & CPU configurations. Further, Students who are passionate enough about building stuff that they're willing to spend a weekend without [much] sleep are an appealing group of students to be hiring. Figure out exactly the ways you create value for your sponsors; the above is a reasonable starting point. Protecting your evangelist/advocates : Part 1 Have a plan to get home postevent, best laid plans of mice and men often go awry, Collect feedback on your product and documentation, Monitor the Slack or Discord channel for questions about your tech, Have online resources readily available for those who miss the workshop, Have a shortened URL or QR code at the booth or on swag to direct hackers to those online resources. committers, employees of Eclipse member companies and and volunteers from the vast Eclipse community to help organize the A little work ahead of time reduces stress when you have a fixed amount of time to pick your winner. (LogOut/ Mission: To enable discoveries that advance science and society through the application of advanced computing technologies. The Eclipse Foundation will contribute toward the cost of Build relationships with past sponsors as well as existing ones. Sponsors can take firms to next level by giving sponsorship for a hackathon. a freight elevator we can use? Local start-ups (or, if a company wants to get its APIs in front of developers, start-ups in general) can often be a great fit since there's a good chance you can get the founders to come judge or hang out with the participants, but may have less immediate funding to offer; in general, secure most of your funding from well-known companies before reaching out to smaller start-ups; if nothing else, saying (though not directly) "Google and Microsoft are already lined up to sponsor; would you be interested in joining them?" Local county/city council. Set an event tech trend and make your hackathons go popular. A list of potential sponsors for hackathons. Creativity? A couple of days after the hackathon, we'll send out an email thanking the sponsors; hopefully, enough will convert or buy the product next time they need something like this to make it worthwhile. Change), You are commenting using your Facebook account. Some sponsors may find it easier for them to provide in kind sponsorship, this might be in the form of prizes, a venue or energy drinks. http://cloudycuster.com. mention the user group during the event. 1X O`E~c!>``AAfq=)Y53>7_f5 0+trZpzDddVA 6?9 HdnHL^ MMm_n&'$W "%'M9 ;I^sV 7nIlT} 0|K-Y `|ll&/JV 'Sw7=, aG;SO I love being the next presenter when the audience is getting restless and bored. Most hackathons have at least 3 different tiers which is a common trend between different hackathons. If the prizes are in a locked room who can let you into that locked room before closing ceremonies so you have the prizes to give the winners? Leap Motions mission is to remove the barriers between people and technology. Having different tiers can provide a plethera of addons with the capabilites with what a sponsor can do within the hackathon. What sort of person are you hiring (e.g. Magento Enterprise Solutions Partners & Ecommerce Agency. You can post it to the Discord or Slack channel, or have it displayed at the booth or on the hackathon website.