Frequently asked questions about MARA.

MARA is software for running hackathons, business games and hiring challenges. MARA AI writes the challenge in minutes from a role or a problem. Then you manage teams and submissions on MARA, your people evaluate on criteria set in advance, and everyone who submits gets a verifiable certificate. Born at H-FARM. Free drafts, from €67 a month.

The steps are laid out in how MARA works.

MARA AI writes it with you. You paste a job description or describe a problem; MARA AI asks a few questions, proposes two directions and writes the story, brief, rules, evaluation criteria, deliverables and timeline. You edit everything, and nothing goes live until you approve it.

The first draft arrives in a few minutes. You then review it until you approve it. Answering participants' questions and evaluating submissions still takes your people's time, so block that time in your calendar before you publish.

Yes. Drafts are free and unlimited, so you can show the full challenge, with criteria, deliverables and timeline, before you subscribe to a plan. Nothing goes live until you approve it.

It depends on how you publish the challenge. If it is public, the MARA student community, which is growing with partner universities, can take part. If it is closed, it is reserved for a university's students, who sign in with their university email, or for whoever receives the private link. If you publish for a partner university's students, you use the code the university gives you. People take part alone or in teams, as the challenge rules say.

You can publish the challenge to the MARA student community, growing with partner universities, or keep it closed: reserved for a university's students, who sign in with their university email, or for whoever receives the private link. Your people evaluate and decide: MARA does not select or rank anyone, and today it does not propose candidates. The comparison with platforms and agencies is in platform, agency or DIY.

No. You write and run the challenge yourself: MARA AI writes the draft, and the platform collects sign-ups, submissions, announcements and questions. Promotion and logistics stay with you: MARA is software, not an agency.

You see only the people who take part in your challenges: their profile and the work they submit. In the participant list you also see the statuses your people set.

Yes. How many depends on the plan: Launch keeps 1 challenge live and Growth 3 at once. Enterprise is on contract. Each challenge has its own announcements and its own Q&A.

The organizer's own people evaluate, on criteria fixed before publishing and the same for everyone. Judges enter the workspace, see the submissions and update statuses in the participant list. MARA gives no scores, does not rank anyone and recommends no one.

They sit in one place and you can export them to Excel or ZIP. Before you publish, write into the challenge what happens next: for example, who reads them and by when a decision is made. Results reach participants through an announcement in the challenge, their updated status and an email notification.

You decide the prize before publishing, and participants see it in the challenge. It can be, for example, an interview, an internship or a day with the team. If the prize is cash or has a cash value and you run the challenge in Italy, check with an adviser whether the Italian prize-contest rules (DPR 430/2001) apply.

Ownership of the work is set in the challenge rules, which participants see before they join. So write into the rules who owns the submitted work and say it before sign-ups open. For sensitive cases, have a lawyer check the wording. Everyone who submits keeps their certificate and portfolio either way. The usual options, with a template to fill in, are in the hackathon rules guide.

You pay the subscription only while a challenge is live: Launch costs €67 a month for 1 live challenge, Growth €109 a month for 3 at once. Enterprise is on contract, and drafts are free and unlimited. Prices exclude VAT, with no publishing fee and no fee per participant, and participants never pay. Details are in the pricing section of the home page.

No. The plan depends on how many challenges you keep live at once, not on the format.

Yes. Some tools built for a single event publish a per-event price, sometimes with a free version. Enterprise hackathon platforms often give a price only on request, after a demo. MARA publishes its prices: €67 or €109 a month, VAT excluded, with free drafts. The differences between the categories are in platform, agency or DIY.

For a one- or two-day in-person event, start 6 to 8 weeks ahead. Allow two weeks for the goal and brief, two to four for promotion and sign-ups and the last two for teams, materials and logistics. Sign-ups close 2 weeks before the event, or 1 week before only if teams are already formed. A small internal hackathon needs less promotion and can be ready in 3 to 4 weeks. The steps are in the guide on how to organize a hackathon.

In person it lasts from a few hours to a few days; online it can run for several weeks. According to H-FARM's news page, for example, H-ACK "Robots in Action" on 11 and 12 April 2026 lasted 24 hours. An online hackathon usually runs for 1 to 3 weeks, so people who study or work can take part in their free time.

Usually 3 to 5: enough to cover the skills, few enough for everyone to work. At H-ACK, according to the H-FARM College article, 157 participants worked in 30 teams: just over 5 per team on average. Mixed profiles, for example technical, business and design, help a team cover the whole deliverable.

No. Many hackathons ask for an analysis, a marketing plan, a paper prototype or a presentation. On MARA you set the deliverable when you write the challenge: what matters is that it is clear and can be judged.

Yes. You share it through the private link, and anyone with the link can join. Send it only to the colleagues you want to involve, and do not post it anywhere else. Run it on company time, in place of regular work: see the internal hackathon page for details.

H-FARM's H-ACK "Robots in Action", a 24-hour hackathon held on 11 and 12 April 2026, ran end to end on MARA: 157 participants, 30 teams, 6 judges. Participants collaborated, organized their work and submitted their final projects inside MARA. The numbers come from the H-FARM College article cited in the H-ACK case.

A hackathon lasts from a few hours to a few days in person, or several weeks online, and asks for one final proposal. A business game usually runs over several weeks in stages: each stage builds on the previous one and has its own submission, with its own deadline. On MARA the stages sit inside the same challenge, and announcements and the timeline bring the new data for each stage. See the business game page.

No. Off-the-shelf business simulations run on a ready-made economic model. On MARA the business game starts from a real problem you describe, with real deliverables your people evaluate.

In an interview the candidate tells you what they can do. In a hiring challenge they do it: they work on a real problem from your company and hand in a result your team can evaluate. See the hiring challenge page.

No, if you write it well: set the prize in advance, keep deliverables in proportion to the role and state in the rules who owns the work. Participants see the rules before they join. You judge everyone on the same criteria, and everyone who submits keeps their certificate and portfolio either way.

Use the challenge announcements to tell everyone, at the same time, how it went and what happens next. Each person also sees their updated status and gets an email notification. You can send individual notes to those who submitted. Everyone who submitted, including those who do not make it, gets a verifiable certificate and a portfolio of the work they did.

Yes, even without a partner company. The professor writes the challenge for the course, a business game for example. They can keep it closed: reserved for the university's students, who sign in with their university email, or for whoever receives the private link. A professor who works with a partner company can also write it for the company, which approves it before it goes live. Conditions for universities are agreed with the team: write to info@marachallenge.com.

Conditions for universities are agreed with the MARA team: write to info@marachallenge.com or talk to the team. Students never pay. A university, or a single professor, can write challenges for their own courses. A university that works with partner companies gives each one a code. The company uses it to publish challenges for the university's students, who sign in with their university email. Details are on the universities page.

No. Students and participants never pay, not even for the certificate, and you need no crypto wallet.

If the challenge is public, you see it in the MARA student community and sign up from there. If it is closed, you join with your university email when it is reserved for your university's students, or with the private link the organizer sends you. You do not need to install anything: MARA runs in the browser, at app.marachallenge.com. Any tools you need for the deliverable are listed by the organizer in the brief.

It depends on the challenge. The organizer sets the deliverable: it can be code, but also an analysis, a plan or a presentation, as in business games. Check the deliverables in the brief before you sign up.

The challenge rules say so: the organizer decides whether people take part alone, in teams or either way. MARA does not match people: how teams form is set in the challenge rules, which the organizer decides.

Tell the organizer straight away in the challenge's Q&A, which all participants can see: MARA has no private channel to the organizer. MARA does not match people or decide on changes: whether a team can change its members is up to the organizer.

The organizer decides, and the challenge rules say so: they can ban it, allow it if you declare how you used it, or leave it open. If the rules are silent, ask in the challenge's Q&A, which all participants can see, before you submit.

Ownership of the work is set in the challenge rules, which you see before you join. Read them and decide what to put in your submission. If you submit, you get the certificate either way. For what stays in your portfolio when the rules give rights to the company or ask for confidentiality, check the challenge rules.

The organizer's people, on criteria fixed before publishing and the same for everyone. MARA AI writes the challenge but does not evaluate: MARA gives no scores, does not rank anyone and does not pick the winner.

The organizer decides, not MARA, and the date is in the challenge timeline. Results arrive in three ways: an announcement in the challenge, your updated status and an email notification.

That depends on the organizer: on MARA the organizer can send individual notes to people who submitted. MARA gives no scores, so there is no automatic grade to look up.

That depends on the prize the organizer set before publishing: it can be an interview, an internship or a day with the team, and it is stated in the challenge. MARA is the software the challenge runs on: it does not hire or select anyone.

If you submitted, the verifiable certificate and the portfolio of the work you did: everyone who submits gets them, winner or not. How to use them on your CV and LinkedIn is covered in the hackathon on your CV guide.

In your MARA portfolio, at app.marachallenge.com. For each challenge it holds the brief, your role in the team, the work you submitted and the certificate. If the rules give rights to the company or ask for confidentiality, check the challenge rules.