Introducing Hackathon 5
Innovation is accelerating, and there’s no room for inaction. AI isn’t just changing industries—it’s rewriting the rules of success. If you’re not harnessing its power, someone else is, and they’re moving faster than you think. The future is uncertain, but one thing is clear: you need to innovate or die.
Your teams are full of untapped potential. They’re ready to contribute and solve big problems—but they need the space and the tools to do it. A hackathon is the fastest, most powerful way to kickstart innovation in your organization. It’s the defibrillator for your innovation program—a jolt of energy that brings fresh ideas and real solutions to life in record time.
Enter Hackathon 5 – the most complete solution for organizing your hackathons. Our latest release enhances the previous version with powerful features, keeping hackathon organizers, participants, and judges at the forefront.
So, pick a date. Let them innovate!
The Full Brightidea Hackathon 5 Solution
With 25+ years of innovation expertise, we know that hackathons are more than just good ideas—they require the right strategy, tools, and support. That’s why we’ve developed Hackathon 5, a complete solution designed to make every hackathon a success.
Our approach combines three key elements:
- Coaching & Support: Get as much or as little help as you need from experienced innovation consultants. Whether it’s strategy, setup, or customization, we provide hands-on support to keep your event on track.
- Proven Process: A step-by-step methodology guiding you through every stage, from planning and team formation to execution and judging—our structured approach ensures an efficient, engaging, and results-driven event.
- All-in-One Platform: Our powerful hackathon software streamlines every aspect of the event with automation, collaboration tools, and real-time analytics—delivering a seamless experience for organizers, participants, and judges.
With this complete solution, Brightidea helps you to not only run successful hackathons, but also foster a culture of innovation that drives real business value. The Hackathon 5 release brings powerful enhancements to help you manage, engage, and scale your hackathons with ease.
A Better Experience for Participants
What would a hackathon be without happy participants generating the next best ideas to succeed? From start to finish, participants will now enjoy a smoother hackathon experience. From joining an event, forming teams, collaborating, and keeping updated with phases and timelines, these new features help keep everyone on the same page:
- Participant Onboarding Wizard: Help new hackathon participants get started quickly with ease. The reimagined interactive onboarding wizard walks hackathon participants through registration, event details, and team formation. Teams can also take advantage of Brightidea AI to help create a team image for branding purposes. Reduce the noise and back-and-forth questions of new participants. By streamlining this process, participants can hit the ground running and stay focused on what matters—creating bold new ideas.
- Persistent Countdown: Keep participants aware of time limits by displaying the current phase and time remaining across all relevant event pages. Integrated with the Scheduler and Phase Widget, it ensures participants stay focused and on schedule, whether in the main event view or their project room.
- Winner’s Page: Make your hackathon wrap-up seamless with the Winner’s Page! This feature provides a clear and organized way to announce winners and celebrate their achievements. Once the top projects are selected for the Hackathon, they’ll automatically show on the Winner’s Page, making it easy for everyone to see who won. With a polished design and clear messaging, the Winner’s Page ensures a smooth and professional event conclusion.
Empowering Hackathon Judges
Judging is a critical part of any hackathon, and we’re making it easier than ever for judges to evaluate submissions efficiently. We now offer a tablet-optimized judging experience for seamless live scoring.
- Tablet Judging Experience: Designed with a responsive, optimized interface for iPads and tablets, Brightidea Hackathon 5 enables judges to review and score submissions seamlessly. The larger, touch-friendly interface allows for an intuitive and efficient scoring process, making it easier to navigate projects, view attachments, and provide ratings quickly via slider scales.
- Judging Audio Comments: Judges can now provide verbal feedback using recorded audio, offering richer and more nuanced evaluations than traditional text comments. This feature allows judges to convey tone, emphasis, and detailed insights, ensuring participants receive constructive and personalized feedback on their projects.
Smarter Tools for Hackathon Organizers
Organizing a hackathon is no small feat, but our latest updates give organizers more control than ever before. From the crucial planning phase, through to voting and business implementation, we’ve taken considerable time to develop features that put hackathon organizers in the driver’s seat:
- Automated Event Scheduler: The Automated Event Scheduler simplifies event management with Brightidea’s Hackathon Process. It syncs with the Analytics Dashboard, keeps participants updated on their stage, and allows organizers to set phase times, send targeted emails, and communicate through blogs. Organizers can also rename phases and provide task descriptions and remaining time.
- Advanced Analytics Dashboard: The Advanced Analytics Dashboard simplifies measuring impact by integrating with the Event Scheduler to provide a real-time summary of your hackathon’s success through metrics like engagement, participation, and ROI. It supports data-driven decisions by allowing you to set goals, monitor milestones, and evaluate marketing effectiveness. You can identify which communications boost participation—whether a CEO email increases engagement by 20% or a system email has little effect—enabling you to optimize strategies in real-time for greater event success.
- Editable HTML Email Templates: Hackathon organizers can now set up automated, customizable email templates for event invites, alerts, and important updates. Whether you’re welcoming new registrants or reminding teams of deadlines, this feature ensures consistent messaging and seamless outreach with new HTML capabilities, allowing you to include headers, logos for branding support, enhanced link capabilities and CAN-SPAM compliance updates.
- Hackathon Email Alerts: Running a successful hackathon requires clear, engaging communication. The new pre-built email alerts make it easy to announce your event, send updates, and keep participants informed. With five new email templates added to the library, a few triggers for messages include: first idea view, 24-hour submission deadline, and event closeouts. Keeping participants informed and engaged without lifting a finger.
- Dashboard Nudge Button: Streamline communication by instantly pulling up the emailer with pre-configured recipient groups and a pre-populated message. Whether reminding participants to select their final team or prompting action before deadlines, this feature ensures smooth coordination by deeply connecting key event sections.
But Wait, There’s More
Our team has been hard at work enhancing our hackathon solution with additional updates and features designed to streamline hackathon operations and improve the overall user experience. These updates include:
- Self-Service Licensing: Expand your innovation footprint with a new self-service licensing option. Hackathon admins can now purchase hackathon licenses directly through a user-friendly interface without having to jump through previous hurdles.
- Hidden Vote Counts: Organizers can choose to hide vote counts during the voting phase for greater control over the process and unbiased participation.
- Customer Support Tickets: We’ve fixed ~80 important support issues, making sure customer feedback shapes every update.
Don’t Let Your People Fall Behind
The world is in overdrive. AI is revolutionizing industries, market shifts are relentless, and the competition isn’t slowing down. If you pause, you’re already obsolete. The only path forward is through bold, relentless innovation—right now.
A hackathon isn’t just a launchpad; it’s your survival strategy. It’s how you break barriers, accelerate transformation, and unleash the collective power of your staff to fuel innovation. With Brightidea, you get more than a platform—you get the ultimate innovation engine, designed to supercharge your teams and propel you ahead of the competition.
The time to act isn’t tomorrow. It’s not next quarter. It’s now. The future belongs to those who take it. Are you ready?
Let them innovate.
