See Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackathon

“A hackathon (also known as a hack day, hackfest or codefest) is a design sprint-like event in which computer programmers and others involved in software development, including graphic designers, interface designers, project managers, and others, often including subject-matter-experts, collaborate intensively on software projects.

The goal of a hackathon is to create usable software or hardware with the goal of creating a functioning product by the end of the event. Hackathons tend to have a specific focus, which can include the programming language used, the operating system, an application, an API, or the subject and the demographic group of the programmers. In other cases, there is no restriction on the type of software being created.”

This hackathon aims at targeting problems that women founders face and reducing the gender gap among tech founders. There will be a brief provided for participants who will have to build solutions to solve these women-specific issues.

Therefore, it will be aiming mainly at women participants with a capped participation for men who will still be welcome. Indeed, this is important to have male champions for this issue.

Moreover, as this hackathon is organized by Founders of the Future, the main audience will be people who strongly consider becoming tech founders in a near future, young founders and curious who have the perspective of being founder one day somewhere in their mind. We will, of course, welcome people who are already founders and a larger audience as long as they have a genuine interest of participating to the hackathon.

1. AWESOME PEOPLE

We’ve organized dozens of events for future founders so we can guarantee that you’ll meet a great group of like-minded peers. It is the opportunity to build a support network for your future endeavours, make friends and meet potential co-founders.

2. AMAZING LEARNING EXPERIENCE

We’re strong advocates of “learning-by-doing” and a hackathon is one of the best way to do that thanks to practical work in teams and the help of mentors.

3. GREAT PRIZES

Even though taking part in this great experience is rewarding in itself, it is important to mention that there will also be great prizes for the winning teams.

The winner will:
   – get a £1,000 equity-free cash prize from Natwest
   – be assigned a mentor from the Founders Forum network
   – be able to do office hours follow up meetings with experts from the Founders Forum Family
   – become a members of the Founders of the Future community

There will also be prizes for runner up and third place as well as many more surprises for every participants.

A hackathon is an amazing experience but it is not for everyone. Indeed, you need a certain level of motivation (and crazyness ;-)) to give up an entire weekend and spend it working with strangers.
Therefore, motivation is the first thing that we are testing as this is a free event. We want to understand your commitment level in order to avoid no shows.

The second element is that even if this is en event open to everyone, priority will be given to future founders. A future founder is to us someone who is not currently a full-time founder of a startup but who has the potential and the will to become one in the near future.

If you are in doubt about whether this hackathon is for you or not, feel free to send an email to hackathon@foundersofthefuture.co and the team will be more that happy to guide you.

Here is an outline of how things will take place during the weekend

Friday evening – 16/11/18 – 6.30pm to 12am

– 18.30 Guests registration – Food and drinks
– 19.00 Introduction – Welcome from the hosts
– 19.15 Words from 3 Women Leaders
– 19.30 Q&A with the audience and the 3 speakers
– 20.45 More details on the hackathon and first icebreaker
– 20.15 Pitches
– 20.45 Team creation
– 21.30 All teams start working
– 00.00 Last teams leave the building

Saturday – 17/11/18 – 8am to 12am

– 8.30 Doors open and breakfast
– 9.00 Participants start working
– 11.00 Workshop – “How to build an app in a day” (Each team which doesn’t have people with technical skills sends at least one of their team member to attend the workshop)
– 13.00 Lunch
– 15.30 Participants return to work – Time with mentors (We’ll have a group of 15-20 mentors who will be present during that time and will be going from team to team to give them feedback)
– 19.30 Dinner
– 21.00 Participants return to work
– 00.00 Participants leave the building

Sunday – 18/11/18 – 8am to 8pm

– 8.00 Doors open and breakfast
– 9.00 Participants finalise their presentations
– 11.00 Pitch training sessions with mentors (Teams will be able to book time with mentors to practice their pitch with them and receive feedback)
– 12.30 Lunch
– 13.30 Participants return to work and practice their pitch
– 17.00 Final presentation in front of a Judging panel
– 19.00 Closing cocktail reception and Awards

No

No, you don’t need a team to participate to the hackathon. Part of the fun and the experience is actually to work with new people and we will make it easy to find a team of people to work with.
Additionally, we actually advise not to come with a team which is already formed and to have two people maximum who are already working together on a daily basis to be together on the same team during the weekend.

You don’t need to prepare for the hackathon. But if you want to, we will provide resources to the participants to start to think about the problems to tackle during the weekend.

Here is the timeline from the application to the hackathon:
  – Wednesday, October 3rd, 2018: Announcement to applicants who applied before Friday, September 28th, 2018
  – Wednesday, October 17th, 2018: Announcement to applicants who applied before Friday, October 12th, 2018
  – Wednesday, November 7th, 2018: Announcement to applicants who applied before Friday, November 2nd, 2018
  – Friday, November 9th, 2018: Final application deadline
  – Tuesday, November 13th, 2018: Last announcement to selected participants
  – Wednesday, November 14th, 2018: Founders of the Future Social Mixer – An evening to meet other aspiring entrepreneurs and participants of the hackathon
  – Friday, November 16th, 2018: Start of the Women Founders Hack

Yes, it is strongly encouraged to attend the whole event. However, if there is a short period of time during the event when you need to leave the venue, please let the Founders of the Future know in advance so that we can evaluate whether it is not too disturbing of the flow of the weekend for you to participate.
If you’ve been cleared to participate by the Founders of the Future team, one of the first thing you will have to do is is to warn your team so that everyone can arrange in consequence during the weekend.

If this happens, please let us know in advance as there will definitely be someone else we can extend the invitation to.
We will then keep you in our invite list and you will be able to attend future hackathons that we organize without the need to apply again.