With so many virtual events taking place in 2024, it’s crucial that yours runs smoothly and without any hiccups.
You could certainly organize and launch a hackathon on your own (and many do), but these fast-paced, high-energy events typically have a long string of moving parts and several people working behind the scenes.
With the right tools at your disposal, you can execute each phase of the planning process smoothly, nurture relationships between participants, and give your hackathon its best chance of success and innovation.
To help you navigate the planning process, we’ve rounded up our four favorite tools to help you keep the process as seamless as possible.
Table of contents
- Miro / Mural
- Gather
- Meta Ads
- Eventornado
1. Miro / Mural
It’s safe to say that most hackathons are being organized and attended online.
Miro and Mural are great tools to help you encourage more collaboration among participants, and even mentors and sponsors.
Miro and Mural are online collaborative whiteboard platforms that are fast, super easy to use, and best of all, free!
How to use them while organizing your next hackathon: Miro and Mural are completely virtual, which makes it perfect to engage participants who may be joining from all over the globe.
The digital whiteboards move in real-time, so teams can utilize them for group brainstorming and idea planning.
There are also video conferencing features so teams can get together and collaborate on the go, as well as community templates you can use to suggest helpful resources to help participants navigate the hackathon process.
What we love about it: the speed!
Miro and Mural are ultra-fast, which makes it easy for large groups to work on the same whiteboard at the same time, without interruptions.
2. Gather
Most of us have racked up more Zoom calls than we could have ever imagined two years ago, and while we all need human interaction, traditional video conferencing leaves a lot of room for awkwardness (uncomfortable silences, anyone?).
Gather is a video chat platform that’s built to remove any awkwardness of video calling and make virtual interactions more human.
How to use it while organizing your next hackathon: Gather has some great video features that make social events a no-brainer to organize.
Organize “parties” and events with themed decorations and built-in games to bring teams together and break the ice before the actual hackathon date.
What we love about it: The immersive experience!
Users can challenge each other to games, watch sporting games together, and just mingle in a fun, laid-back environment without having to leave their houses (or sofas).
Hackathons are great fun, but some organizers struggle to match the buzz when the event is fully online, so this can be a great way to encourage interaction among participants.
3. Meta Ads
Once you’ve laid down the planning foundations of your hackathon, you’ll need to get the word out to as many people as possible.
Meta has some great advertising features that can help you reach more people and create some buzz for your event—it’s worth noting that advertising on Meta Ads is a paid service, so you’d need to have a small budget set aside for this.
If you’re looking for free promotion opportunities, check out our post 9 Foolproof Ways Promote Your Next Virtual Hackathon.
How to use it while organizing your hackathon: First, change your business’ page settings so visitors can see your Events listed first in the drop-down menu (among About, Photos, Reviews, and so on).
Share your event and pin it to the top of your business page so visitors can’t miss it.
Post updates in the weeks leading up to your hackathon (two weeks before the hackathon, one week before the hackathon, the day before, and the day of). See Hubspot’s step-by-step guide for promoting your event on Facebook.
What we love about it: If you’re willing to put a small budget towards it, Meta paid ads allow you to get your event in front of a very specific target audience. You can target accounts based on location, interests, past behavior, and other analytics to make sure the right people are seeing your hackathon.
4. Eventornado
The list wouldn’t be complete if we didn’t add Eventornado!
Between sifting through applications, creating promotional material, and communicating with sponsors and mentors, you’ll need a dedicated platform to manage and host your hackathon.
The planning process can take weeks and sometimes months, and the last thing you’ll want to do is toggle between dozens of spreadsheets and messaging platforms to ensure all the parts keep moving.
Eventornado is an all-in-one platform that helps you plan, manage, and host your hackathon from one place.
And because of its easy-to-use interface, you don’t need to install any additional software or train your partners and participants.
As long as everyone involved can use a smartphone, they’ll be able to use Eventornado.
How to use it: Eventornado is specifically built for innovation and hackathons, so you have a full suite of tools to help you launch your event, from putting out your first call to submission, right through to announcing winners and beyond.
What we love about it: One of the biggest challenges organizers face is team management, and if your hackathon is virtual, your participants will likely be joining from all over the world.
On Eventornado, managing teams is easy, with integrated chat rooms and registration pages that won’t require you to leave the platform.
With most hackathons happening virtually, and participants joining from all over the world, organizers need to ensure the event is as smooth sailing as possible.
With Eventornado, participants can submit their ideas and assemble teams based on their skills, all from within one place.
Everything happens within the Eventornado platform, so there’s no need to toggle multiple apps, documents, or spreadsheets.
Launch your first hackathon with Eventornado
Organizing a hackathon can be incredibly rewarding, whether you’re a new startup on the scene or if you’ve already made a name for yourself in the industry and want to make an even bigger impact.
If you’re ready to launch yours, book yourself in for a free demo of Eventornado to see how easy the planning process can be!
We help all our hackathon organizers to plan, manage and host their events as smoothly as possible, without repetitive tasks and messy workflows.
Want to read more articles? Check out our library of blog posts and guides where you’ll find lots of useful insights and tips for first-time hackathon organizers.
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