How it felt to be a Hackathon Judge for the first time.

A journey from hackathon attendee to hackathon mentor to hackathon Judge, it was great. I was invited as one of the 7 judges at Hackathon at Atharva College Of Engineering.

I never thought that judging would be that hard. As an attendee, I was always thinking that judging is what look at a project and measure its progress and gives marks based on these. That's it. But when I became a judge then my thought process was really different. Now I am thinking from different angles like is it creating any impact on society? is it qualifying all criteria of the hackathon and so on. Along with this, I am also doing the calculation of marks that to be given for the project based on criteria specified in mark sheet for eg. Ideation, Execution, Ui and many more. I was trying to give everyone actual marks they deserve and trust me this was the hardest job as a judge. Because as a regular hackathon attendee I know that creating a working model from an idea in just some hours is harder and it takes lots of hard work, planning, sacrifices, research, brainstorming and many more. Now, as a judge, I am considering all these things plus if they were able to create something? plus if they are on the track of their idea? plus if the project has any outcome? plus is it looking good (UI / UX)? plus the project's technology stack? and research.

In short, a judge has to think a lot while giving marks. It is not so easy job that I thought, it is really hard to go through each project and give out marks to them.

Thanks for such great opportunity to Nida Shaikh Hriday Hegde and Hackathon Team.

Looking forward to such good opportunities.

Thanks, Atika Khan for recommending me.

It was great to work with great minds Nilesh Shinde, Deesha Vora, Jonathon Joshi, Raj Dedania, Aniket Kadam.

And last but not least..... Congratulations to winners and kudos to all participants for adding one more hackathon in their feathers.