Community and forming teams during online hackathons

Online hackathons are missing the natural camaraderie found during in-person hackathons. When launching an online hackathon, think about how your participants are feeling. They are likely sitting at their computer and learning on their own about your hackathon and required tools. Help them out by connecting them with your team and other participants. 

The Devpost platform provides a few tools listed below to help you connect with participants and for them to connect with each other. You can also promote your own communities, discussion forums, or channels to fill the void of human interaction. As a hackathon manager, just be sure to foster these communication channels and ensure they are friendly, inclusive, and promote psychological safety. 

Devpost Discord

Devpost has its own community on the Devpost Discord server where we host different hackathon channels and events. The community team at Devpost has set up our Discord server so anyone from within the community can check-in and access a specific hackathon’s chat to start teaming up.

Discussion Forums

If participants would rather start a conversation about their ideas and get others to come to them, they may consider starting a thread on the competition Discussion Board. Participants don’t need to do a full reveal, but they should be sure to say enough about what they’d like to do / what they need to get potential teammates excited.

Participants Tab

Using the competition Participants tab, registrants can see who else is participating and look for teammates. If they see a profile they would like to team up with, they can introduce themselves through the platform and start a conversation.