Guides to organizing hackathons, business games and challenges.

This page lists MARA's guides on how to organize a hackathon, a business game or a hiring challenge: what you need, how long it takes, what it costs, which alternatives exist. They draw on public prices, one real case and cited sources. They are grouped by phase, with a section for participants and one with templates to copy.

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Before: decide and prepare

  • How to organize a hackathon: step-by-step guide

    Goal, format, brief, rules, judges, prizes, timeline and budget, in the order you decide them.

  • Hackathon platform

    What it takes to run a hackathon in one place, how MARA does it and what it costs.

  • Internal hackathon

    When an internal hackathon for employees makes sense and how to run one with a private link.

  • Business games on real cases

    The staged format over several weeks, for companies and universities, and how it differs from business simulations.

  • Hiring challenge

    The work sample test for graduates. You start from the job description, and your people evaluate on criteria set in advance.

  • Online hackathon

    Length by audience, separate channels, remote teams and a 3-week plan.

  • How much a hackathon costs

    Cost lines, judging time, a sample budget and figures from public sources.

  • Hackathon business case

    How to pitch it to leadership, with a template to fill in and answers to objections.

  • University hackathon

    Formats, partner companies, exam periods, first-time participants and credits, for universities, career services and professors.

  • Hackathon prizes

    Prizes by goal, non-cash prizes, how to split a prize pool and what to put in the rules.

  • Promoting a hackathon

    How many sign-ups you need, worked out backwards from submissions, which channels to use and a 6-week plan to copy.

During and after

  • Hackathon checklist

    What to do week by week, from 8 weeks out to the day after.

  • Hackathon judging criteria

    Three weighted rubrics ready to copy, and how to run the jury.

  • Hackathon judges

    How many judges you need, who to invite, how to brief them and how much time to ask for, with an invitation letter and a judge's sheet to copy.

  • After the hackathon

    Owners and decision dates, a recap page, a retrospective, metrics by goal, a 60-day plan and a 10-question participant survey.

  • The H-ACK case

    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 with 157 participants, 30 teams and 6 judges. The numbers and the source (an H-FARM College article) are in the case.

For participants

  • How to prepare for a hiring challenge

    What to do before, during and after: the brief, AI rules, ownership of the work and a 2-week plan.

  • MARA certificates

    The verifiable certificate everyone who submits receives and how to use it on LinkedIn.

Templates

  • Free templates

    Rules, judging rubrics, a checklist, an event planning sheet and ready-to-send emails, with no form to fill in.

  • Brief examples

    Three complete briefs to adapt (hiring challenge, internal hackathon, business game), with weighted criteria, timeline, prize and a blank template.

Other resources

  • Glossary

    30 hackathon, business game and hiring challenge terms, each explained in one or two sentences.

  • How MARA works

    The steps of a challenge, who does what at each one, what MARA does not do and what it costs.

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