A judge who has won the room.
Three hackathon first prizes and a top-three finish before I started judging, which is why my criteria are written down, shared with teams in advance, and scored the same way for everyone.
- Roles
- Judge, mentor, criteria design, closing talk
- Format
- Half a day to the full event
- Where
- On site, or a remote panel
- Feedback
- Written notes for every team
- 3first prizes
- 10+hackathons
- 200+students mentored
- 5production AI apps
Where I have placed
As a participant, before the judging table.
- 1st
- Changethon 2025 hackathon, National Social Summit, IIT Roorkee
- 1st
- Product Genesis, Vividhotsava 2025, CSJMU
- 1st
- BYTEBATTLE hackathon, MeetKats
- Top 3
- Hackathon, IIT Kanpur
How I judge
Published before the event, so teams know what wins.
- 01
Problem before product
Does the team understand who hurts and why? A sharp problem statement scores more than a wide feature list.
- 02
Working beats described
A live demo of one thing that works outscores slides about five things that might.
- 03
Honest engineering
What is real, what is mocked, what breaks. Teams that say so score higher than teams that hide it.
- 04
Feedback you can use
Every team gets written notes: what to fix first, what to keep, and where to take it next.
At the table and on the mic
Judging, mentoring and pitching.
Travel, stay and fees
Stated plainly, so a request can be made with confidence.
For campus sessions the inviting institution covers the visit end to end: travel (a First AC train ticket up to five hours, a flight beyond that), stay, meals, and pickup and drop. The honorarium and any workshop fee are agreed on WhatsApp or on the call.
Full details on the invite page and in the FAQ.
Need a judge your teams will respect?
Share the date and format; criteria, schedule and terms are confirmed on WhatsApp within a day.