The Beginning

As a hackathon organizer, I needed a way to ensure that everyone was aware of upcoming events.

I started out by putting together a site that featured a live updating calendar and chat system. It worked beautifully.

Ever since I've been fascinated by event coordination software, and continue to design and build tools to help run the hackathon.

Registration

A few weeks before the event, we put up a site that invited hackers to sign up for the event.

They let us know what size shirt they wanted, and we sent them an email with a QR Code.

1. Asking for Help

I wanted to encourage attendees to ask for help, so I designed a prompt that made it easy to quickly submit questions.

2. Conversation

As soon as a question is submitted, the prompt grows into a modal chat interface connected to a team of mentors.

Thanks to websockets, the attendee can instantly participate in a discussion with multiple mentors, ensuring that they get exposed to all of the expertise they need.

3. Resolution

Once a problem is solved, mentors or attendees can mark a conversation as resolved.

Once marked as resolved, the chat window automatically closes on both ends and notifies all participants that everything is good to go.

Marking problems as resolved also ensures that mentors don't waste valuable time tackling problems that have already been addressed.

Not all information needs to interrupt you.

Using web technologies, I was able to set up a large display in every room to show upcoming events, useful tips, and announcements.

Thanks to integration with Twitter, making an announcement to all rooms was a snap.

I built a tool for iOS devices that made it easy for mentors to track problems, request help, and even submit hackathon projects.

By following Twitter conversations, it also made it simple for organizers to read about every part of the event, and address problems quickly.