lil list of upcoming hackathons - @MetaforDevs global ai developer hackathon, $1m, applications opening soon, virtual - @ethglobal mumbai, $175k+, nov 5 to 7, in person - @paypal ai hackathon, $67k+, closes nov 12, online - @gitlab life after code, $45k, closes oct 27, online - @neatlogs neathack, up to $10k, oct 10 to 11, online - @hiagntid x @devfolio hackathon, macbook neo, oct 10, in person, bengaluru

how to build a team for a hackathon? - find individuals that fit different pieces of the puzzle. 
if you are good at design, find someone who is good at backend. it is not essential to begin after being a master of everything. - let each individual work independently and trust their skills.
during our first big win, none of us had any idea about IoT except a friend of mine, whom we trusted (at least a little). the same goes for other team members and their skills. once you formed a team, have full conviction and back them. - you need at least one person who can present well.
a good idea is good as the story teller. unless you can present it well, it may not land, despite a good product. - your university is probably the best place to start from. 
there is an underlying commonality that will reduce the time spent on breaking ice. both of you will also be in sync with schedules and likely know idiosyncrasies etc. If your university has a tech club, that is the best place to begin with. the commonality increases further here because many like minded people have joined with the same goal of learning and growing in tech. - having said that, it’s ok to not team up with only your friends. circling back to the first point, the main aim is to find folks whom you can absolutely trust. saying no doesn’t break your friendship :) - hackathons often also have team formation sessions at the start. you could find folks there as well. i have personally not tried that because there are a lot of unknowns here. however, you can also find genuinely interesting people, beyond your circle. - it might take few attempts before the rhythm sets in.
i have hacked with at least 10-15 different people. at the start, some didn’t even turn up at the event. but over time, i found individuals whom i knew i could trust and even learn something new every time. open to questions / your opinions!

how to create a hackathon winning demo? recently judged a hackathon, so here are some observations and thoughts from the lens of a judge: - don’t use ai generated scripts or ai generated voice videos. it’s an instant let down. you have worked on the project yourself, and thus there is no better person than yourself to talk about it. it can be raw with some bullet points you want to cover but please speak yourself. - show a *live demo* not slides. cannot stress on this enough. spend less time explaining the problem and more time showing what you have built. you can skip slides altogether and save some time. demos speak louder than words. - stick to the time limit. if its 3 mins, spend not more than 30s explaining the problem, 90-120s for demo, and 30-60s for explaining the technicalities. sprinkle the technical details while demoing itself - makes it easier to understand while saving on time. - use a tool like @cap , @screenstudio or @OBSProject. some of them add a cursor zoom automatically and will instantly elevate your demos. all demos you see on my profile are recorded using @cap - practice public speaking / being coherent. this will come over time but the ability to present your thoughts in a succinct manner will take you very far, beyond just hackathons. - include diagrams if you can. use @excalidraw or just ask your ai tool to create one, while you supervise it. i still find it better creating them manually. - please write the readme *without* using ai. similar to the video, write this yourself or at least a big chunk of what you wanted to build and why. write in small points. llms write way too much jargon and unnecessary adjectives. it then becomes the judges’ responsibility to decipher your project - which is the last thing you’d want among the sea of projects. open to suggestions / questions!