I’ve attended few hackathons, often through ASU, and they’ve painted a disappointing picture of what hackathons are or have become.
Online, especially in memes, hackathons are often portrayed as high-energy events full of incredibly skilled, competitive developers building impressive prototypes in record time. In reality, many of the ones I’ve attended were filled with students still very early in their learning journeys, several struggling with basic remote deployment or project setup.
Most recently, I attended Sunhacks, one of ASU’s larger hackathons. While I appreciate the effort that went into organizing it, I left unsure of what the event was really trying to achieve.
The strong presence of sponsoring companies, Google, Amazon, Base44, and others, seemed to steer the event toward lame AI-related projects. I don’t think this was intentional; it’s just what happens when the showcased tools and challenges revolve around LLM APIs. As a result, many teams, including mine, ended up producing AI-driven web apps that all felt somewhat similar. Very few projects stood out as novel or experimental, and even the more creative ones didn’t seem to receive much recognition.
The judging process also suffered from scaling issues. There were too few judges for the number of teams, which likely led to uneven evaluations. Early teams had a better chance of being seen thoroughly, while others may have been skipped or reviewed hastily. This kind of fatigue bias is well known, and should be easy to plan around, but somehow, the organizers missed it completely.
That said, there were positives. The event offered great opportunities to socialize and meet new people, and I got to see several neat ideas and clever implementations from other teams, even if none of them ended up winning.
Still, it’s hard not to notice the broader trend. With the economy tightening and companies hiring fewer students, there’s a growing sense of disengagement at these events. Many company representatives seemed to be there merely to maintain a presence, devoid of any real enthusiasm.
It maybe suggests a larger trend, a waning trust in the economy at large, where both companies and students are becoming more cautious, more restrained, and less optimistic about the near-term and possibly long-term as well.
If you’ve had a different experience, I’d love to hear your thoughts.