Recap of Sedrah and NextGenAI Hackathons (in Saudi Arabia)
Lessons for organizers and participants on how to make the most of hackathons
tl;dr
I went to Saudi Arabia for 18 days to mentor two different hackathons - Sedrah and NextGen AI related to sustainability and gen AI respectively
Ensuring the judging criteria are clear and well-communicated is essential for fair competition
Participants should draft their presentation before building their product for greater alignment and clarity on the final deliverable
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I recently wrote about my time in Saudi Arabia where I was invited to to mentor two different hackathons.
The first one, Sedrah, was a hackathon focused on sustainability tech. The second one, called NextGen AI, was focused on…AI of course.
The idea was that events like this would help grow the startup ecosystem in Saudi Arabia and help diversify the industry outside of oil as part of their Vision 2030.
Since the two events were only two weeks apart, I decided to fly in for Sedrah first, stay for two weeks, attend the NextGen AI hackathon, and fly out right after.
I’m glad I went because both events turned out to be very memorable times of my life.
Clear Judging Criteria is Critical for Fair Competition at Hackathons
The way hackathons generally work is that they are short 1-3 day events focused around a certain theme.
Participants form teams to build a prototype (usually from scratch) in that time, and present at the end for the judges to evaluate.
I learned a few things about organizing hackathons from attending both.
First, I realized how important it is to spell out the judging criteria for all the participants from the beginning so they know what to focus on.
If I had to run a hackathon myself, I would explicitly call out whether teams should all start from scratch or if it’s OK to bring prior work to the event.
Teams that bring prior work in had a significant head start over those who started at the event, so this is an important criteria to call out.
I also think it’s important to put more weight on getting something functional and working at the end.
Otherwise anyone could propose any kind of crazy solutions, but whether it is practical and implementable is another story.
So ensuring they actually have a real working demo during their presentation is something I would weigh more heavily when evaluating winners.
The Best Demo Always Wins
From my observations from the participants’ side, first I noticed that the winners tend to have deep expertise in the problem they are solving.
For example, at the NextGen AI hackathon, the winner was someone who built a financial compliance tool using AI and had worked in the fintech and compliance industry for many years.
It was a similar story at Sedrah where the winners were business owners who had worked in sustainability for most of their career.
This shows that entrepreneurs seeking to disrupt an industry should consider working in that industry to better understand the problems they seek to solve.
Second, I realized that hackathons are legitimate growth channels for startups.
It gives you a chance to pitch your startup and show your progress in front of a large audience to gain customers and attract investors.
At this event, I realized also how important the presentation was, as that’s all the judges have to assess your work on.
So anything that isn’t shown in the presentation, like edge cases or deployment setups, aren’t worth investing much time on in such a time-crunched environment.
Even in my talks, I advised participants to start with their presentation and work backwards from that.
They should draft out what they want to say before they even start building the product because it will help clarify what their end goal should be.
Lastly, winning hackathon pitches tended to have a particular format that I called the 1-1-1 format, which means you spend 1 minute on each of the following:
The problem
The solution
The impact
In that order during the presentation. So the 1-1-1 framework can help you clarify how best to position your demo.
For example, in this demo from the winning hackathon at an Accenture hackathon, notice how their slides follow this structure as well.
Here in the first slide, the winner discusses the problem that seniors have reading prescription labels.
Then notice how they discuss the solution - their app that uses AI and computer vision to turn text into voice.
Lastly, they address revenue potential, market size, and scalability concerns.
So just as these hackathon participants structured their presentation in a 1-1-1 format, I recommend you do the same at your next hackathon!
Final Thoughts
These two hackathons were the first hackathons I’ve ever been to, and I’m sure I’ll attend more in the future, especially if I build a SaaS product again.
I particularly enjoyed attending the Saudi hackathons though, because it gave me a chance to interact with locals and learn more about the culture.
While there, I learned:
How devout they were as the event space had dedicated prayer areas that people frequently used
Saudis are more nocturnal since most hackathons started around 1pm, whereas in the US hackathons usually started early at 8am
That women and men can work together, but outside of that there is generally a respectful separation of genders
I also gained a further appreciation for the power of public speaking. Both of the talks I gave lead to many lasting connections as people approached me after to discuss it further.
In fact, I now have more connections in Saudi Arabia than any other country in the world (outside of the USA)!
Pro-tip: Always give a talk at every event you attend!
And if you wanted to check out my presentation, you can use this link below to see my transcript and slides.
Enjoy!
In the mean time, feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn or Twitter where I post daily content on AI and entrepeneurship.
You can also connect with me here on Instagram.
And, if you have any referrals for folks interested in building anything related to AI, let me know!
I offer a $1,000 referral bonus for every opportunity that closes (website link).
Thanks,
Michael