What is a GitHub Hackathon

GitHub Hackathons are focused on technology solutions usually underpinned by code, and good technology. Ideation hackathons are focused on identifying problems and coming up with creative solutions.

Depending on your goals, rather than creating brand new ideas, your hackathon could also be a coding challenge, where you post a problem and developers must use code to solve that problem. The problem could be “build a GitHub Action”, or it could be “solve these issues in this example program”. Coding challenges are great to learn a new technology space while working together in teams.

GitHub Hackathon Criteria

If you want your hackathon to be a GitHub Hackathon, here’s the criteria you’ll need to hit. These are things you should always consider implementing for a hackathon, regardless if you want to be certified or not:

The hackathon MUST be open sourced. Ie. the solutions built must be available in a public GitHub repo and/or published on an open website.

The hackathon MUST have a code of conduct.

The hackathon challenges MUST be around solving social good challenges.

The hackathon must be using GitHub in some form.

If you hit all this criteria, then you can apply to be featured on our website!