How is the Hearst Hackathon Judged?

Winners of the Hearst Hackathon will be selected by a panel of judges that includes industry leaders as well as one representative from each sponsoring company. Judges include:

Phil Wiser Chief Technology Officer, Hearst Corporation Judging will have two rounds, each with a live presentation format without slides or pitch decks: Round 1 of judging will occur one-on-one with a single judge, and each judge will select his or her top two choices to move to Round 2.

Round 2 of judging will be on the main stage with A/V support in front of the full panel of judges. Each submission will be scored in each round based on the following criteria with a minimum score of 0 and maximum score of 20 points, with the final score being the average of the judges’ scores:

Simplicity (5 points): Is the application simple to use and can the team explain it clearly in three sentences or less?

Creativity (5 points): How creative was the team in developing an innovative solution for the challenge?

Impact (5 points): Did the team create an application that can have a real and valuable impact?

Design (5 points): Was the UX/UI intuitive and appealing?

For the existing startups we add “how well did you integrate the Hearst API into your existing business plan and product?” 5pts.

What is the Fresh Code Rule?

All code developed as part of the Hearst Hackathon must be fresh. Before the start of the Hearst Hackathon, developers can create wireframes, designs and user flows. They can also come with hardware. But to keep things fair, all code must be written onsite at the Hearst Hackathon. Other than that, almost anything goes and you can use any coding languages or open-source libraries.