You Can Hack That: How to Use Hackathons to Solve Your Toughest Challenges

HOW TO USE HACKATHONS TO SOLVE
YOUR TOUGHEST PROBLEMS
YOU CAN
HACK THAT

“Hackathon” has become a trendy word in today’s
business vernacular, and for good reason. The word
“hackathon” comes from both “hack” and “marathon.”
If you think of a “hack” as a creative solution and
“marathon” as a continuous, often competitive event,
you’re at the heart of what a hackathon is about.
Hackathons enable creative problem solving through an
innovative and often competitive structure that engages
stakeholders to come up with unconventional solutions
to pressing challenges. Hackathons can be used to
develop new processes, products, ways of thinking,
or ways of engaging stakeholders and partners, with
benefits ranging from solving tough problems to
broader cultural and organizational improvements.
Booz Allen has been at the forefront of helping public
and private sector clients design hackathons to achieve
all these objectives and more. We also often run internal
hackathons that engage our 22,000+ global technology
and strategy consultants to solve difficult challenges,
generate new ideas and even train existing staff in new
capabilities. While our experience has shown there is
no one-size-fits-all approach, we’ve found successful
hackathons share many of the same characteristics
and design themes. This guide is meant to summarize
what we’ve learned and make hackathons as accessible
and effective as possible for organizations of all
shapes and sizes.

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CONTENTS
SERIOUSLY, WHAT’S A HACKATHON?................................................................ 2
Definition
Types
Components
Crowdsourcing
ORGANIZATIONAL BENEFITS............................................................................. 3
There are big-picture ways that a hackathon can benefit your entire organization
12 HACKATHON BEST PRACTICES...................................................................... 4
PLANNING GUIDES............................................................................................11
A pre-planning hackathon checklist
An operational planning checklist
An example timeline for a 24-hour hackathon
HACKATHON USE CASES...................................................................................16
One: Transportation Hackathon
Two: Baseball Analytics
Three: Hack the Sky
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS.....................................................................20
A resource to reference back to as you read
This playbook was designed to make hackathons accessible to everyone. That means
not only can all kinds of organizations benefit from hackathons, but that all kinds of
employees inside those groups—executives, project managers, designers, or
engineers—should participate and can benefit, too.
Use this playbook as a reference and allow the best practices we outline to guide you
in designing a hackathon structure that works for you and enables your organization to
achieve its desired outcomes. Give yourself anywhere from six weeks to a few months
to plan your hackathon, depending on the components, approach, number of
participants, and desired outcomes.

2
All hackathons start with a clearly defined
problem or challenge you’re trying to solve.
Next, determine the participants you need
to create the right mix of expertise. In
parallel, relevant materials such as use
cases, data sources, IT infrastructure, legal
documentation, and evaluation criteria are
assembled as background information for
participants. The event can then take place
in a physical or virtual (or both!)
environment.
You may think hackathons solve only
technical problems, but that’s not the
case. The creative process hackathons
embody can be applied much more
broadly, such as:
Coding/Product Development. Use this
approach if you are looking to create an
MVP—minimum viable product. This is
what most people envision when they
think of hackathons. Ask yourself if you
have the in-house talent and technology to
build it or if integrating a third party would
help. Activities include: agile development
sprints, pitching, live audience stand-ups
and retrospectives
Prototyping. Use this approach when you
have concepts that you want to test with
stakeholders. How will you learn what
needs to be changed? Activities include:
paper prototyping, digital wireframes,
service mockups, real-world feedback
collection, co-creation
User Experience Testing. Use this
approach to designate testing time to a
new product or to revisit an old product or
process. How could it be improved?
Activities include: direct and remote testing,
moderated and unmoderated testing, focus
groups
Stakeholder Engagement. Use this
approach to better test and understand
the core needs of your stakeholders.
Methodically work through complex topics
by synthesizing data, defining manageable
problem statements, rapidly generating
new concepts for products or services,
and building mockups. Have you
effectively addressed all key requirements?
Is the user experience intuitive? Activities
include: ethnographic research, sense-
making, reframing, ideation, mockups,
rapid prototyping, freeform designing,
playing with typography, externally inspired
moodboards
Marketing or Business Development. Use
this approach to answer some big-picture
business questions. Is your marketing
audience still the same? Does your end
user still need this experience/product?
Who are your competitors and what are
they doing? Activities include: developing
pitches, assessing marketing approaches,
market research, competitive analysis,
SWOT analysis
Seriously, What’s a Hackathon?
While hackathon structures can vary widely, all share the same organizing
principles— collaboration, crowdsourcing, competition, and creative problem
solving. They can last hours, days, or even weeks, bringing people together to
ideate, test and accelerate new ideas in a low-risk environment.

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These approaches are not mutually
exclusive—you can use one or many in
your hackathon. The activities described
may sound a lot like crowdsourcing, a
process that gathers inputs from a crowd
of people who are working toward one
common goal quickly and efficiently (the
word itself is derived from “crowd” and
“outsourcing”).
Hackathons are a form of crowdsourcing,
and crowdsourcing is often used during
hackathons. But, by putting constraints
around crowdsourcing (event-based,
in-person, problem-oriented, etc.),
hackathons can not only amplify the
power of the crowd, but also mitigate the
accompanying risks. For example, the
judging criteria of a hackathon can
influence both the process and the
outcomes, helping the crowd stay on track.
ORGANIZATIONAL BENEFITS
Given that hackathons are used to solve a
range of challenges and support various
organizational objectives, the exact
benefits will depend on what it is you’re
trying to do. Here are some of the most
common benefits:
Solve hard problems. A hackathon’s
structure demands innovation, encourages
open dialogue and incentivizes
participants to solve your hardest
challenges and problems.
Find ways to improve. By applying
methodologies such as design thinking,
agile, rapid prototyping, data science, and
more, hackathons can help to encourage
innovation and improve existing
processes, products, or ways of thinking or
working.
Showcase technical capability. Hosting
and participating in hackathons puts your
talents and capabilities on display. It
highlights talent who might not often be
in the limelight and cements conviction in
the capabilities where you are strongest as
an organization.
Build a community. Partner up with
organizations and individuals who share
your mission and you’ve got a winning
combination. This can allow existing talent
to network or learn new skills from other
experts in the area, while enabling you to
build a “community of practice” that can
be engaged for future challenges.
Attract and retain talent. Hackathons are
creative processes, so creative people
gravitate towards them. Hosting a
hackathon is a natural way to engage with
the best and the brightest, and enable
prospective recruits to experience your
culture. Hackathons also provide a
platform to re-engage your existing talent
and to make sure they are connected,
meaningfully contributing, and valued for
their skills and passion.

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12 Hackathon Best Practices
We have tried a lot of different hackathon models. Through this experimentation,
we have always found that the best hackathons celebrate both individual ingenuity
and team performance. How can that be possible? Adopt our 12 best practices
and you’ll enjoy the best of both worlds, too.
0201You may read that and think, “well that’s
obvious.” But we want to emphasize this
because the challenge statement should
be your guiding light for structuring the
hackathon, engaging participants and
designing the solution(s). You should be
able to succinctly define the problem
you’re trying to solve in a sentence or
two, and be able to clearly define what
“success” means.
Whether your solution is a product,
process, or something else, keep the end
user’s needs in mind as you define the
problem. It’s also important to practice
empathy and retain this perspective
throughout the hackathon by providing
reminders during solution design. This is
often done by having experts available to
provide real-time feedback, featuring
speakers throughout the hackathon to
keep focus on the initial problem,
reframe constraints and uncover unmet
requirements. The last think you want is
a tone-deaf solution to a problem the
user doesn’t have.
One of the best things about a hackathon
is that it brings together technical and
non-technical people who wouldn’t
ordinarily work together. Inclusion is a
powerful catalyst for innovation—don’t
stifle that innovation by being too rigid.
Let this atypical team shape the
experience for themselves. You’ll be
amazed at the ideas that come out of
getting different perspectives into the
same room together. We mentioned
before that the best hackathons also have
a knack for letting individual ingenuity
thrive. (Pro Tip: One way to make sure that
happens is to log all of the completed
ideas from the event into a database and
attribute who did what. Take it a step
further and assign a team to pursue the
ideas beyond where you had to stop. You
could even ask non-hackathon
participants to pick an idea and build
upon it.)
It’s true of improv comedy and it’s true of
hackathons—never say no. Instead, say
“yes, and…” Always take an idea a step
further as a team.
CHOOSE AN APPROPRIATE
PROBLEM OR CHALLENGE
FOCUS ON THE
TEAM EXPERIENCE

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03Bringing together diversity is great, but it
can be disconcerting for a group of
people who don’t usually work together
to suddenly do so in an accelerated
environment. That’s where trust in a
hackathon’s structure comes in—it will
help to establish what collaboration looks
and feels like during this challenge. That’s
not to say you can’t bend or break the
rules, but by using tried and true
hackathon practices as a baseline, you’ll
be able to wrangle people of diverse
backgrounds to work together well and
ultimately, to be successful.
Structure means knowing what the
desired outcomes of the challenge are,
what the judging criteria are, or if teams
are expected to present their findings at
the end. All of this guidance creates an
environment in which it’s safe to take
risks.
HAVING RULES
IS OKAY
04So you’ve got a diverse team and some
structure. Leading you across the finish
line will be a facilitator or facilitators. Your
facilitator(s) should know who all of the
participants are, be aware of the defined
problem sets and available information,
create the hackathon’s underlying
structure, and make sure everyone is
heard. They will hold the group to those
rules—things like only one person can
speak at a time, there are no bad ideas,
and ELMO (enough, let’s move on).
Facilitators can also be subject matter
experts or have domain expertise in a
specific area, which you’ll need for your
hackathon anyway. This emphasizes the
idea that you should be free to learn from
anyone around you.
A good facilitator will encourage a
collaborative spirit even in a competitive
environment and recognize the power of
working as one toward the best possible
solution.
INVITE A
FACILITATOR

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05 06We get it, siloes in your business provide
organizational structure. But siloes have
no place in a hackathon. They stop the
free flow of information, slow down
decision-making, and can send you back
to square one if something goes wrong.
You’ll want participants from across your
organization to collaborate laterally,
including leadership. For example, if your
hackathon is tied to your organization’s
overall mission, having a business
leader’s perspective will be valuable.
Participants should be free to try new
things and dig into topics they might not
consider themselves an expert on. If this
freedom is applied within the structure of
the hackathon and under the guidance of
the facilitators, you could uncover new
insights. It goes back to the idea of
having a diverse group of voices in the
room—it ensures all perspectives can be
shared to make the solution richer and
more meaningful, i.e., having a customer
service rep around when a product
design is being discussed.
This gets back to the idea of crowd-
sourcing, and we encourage you to think
of your crowd in two different ways. First,
in your research phase, consider the
“crowd” to be those from whom you’re
collecting qualitative data. Let the
collective wisdom from this group of
potential end users drive your ideation.
Second, think of the crowd as the group
of people who are actively participating in
the hackathon. They’re going to bring
varied, and sometimes competing ideas
to the table. Since you’re not working in
siloes, these ideas will play out in front of
a diverse team.
Trust in the wisdom of that team to drive
you forward when you’re stuck—but
don’t be afraid to call ELMO to keep
things moving.
BREAK DOWN
SILOES
EMBRACE THE
WISDOM OF THE CROWD
Being agile is all about making
assumptions, testing those hypotheses,
and then iterating on your idea based
on your findings. It means not being
afraid to try a new idea if something
isn’t working.

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0807Cognitive diversity is the goal, but often
that comes from being identity diverse.
Make sure you’ve baked diversity into
your hackathon participation to
encourage that natural diversity of
thought. That can mean making sure you
have all levels of the organization
represented as well as bringing in diverse
demographics.
Bring in those for whom English may be
their second language. Welcome
participants from diverse ages, races,
genders, sexes, and more. This is
especially important to remember if your
hackathon has multiple teams.
Just like the physical meaning of the
word, “agile” means embracing a nimble
approach. Being agile is all about making
assumptions, testing those hypotheses,
and then iterating on your idea based on
your findings. It means not being afraid
to try a new idea if something isn’t
working. You’ll be working quickly,
structuring your work in mini sprints.
An agile approach allows you to keep
moving forward. This is the true spirit of
a hackathon—to work and learn as much
as you can as you work toward a
common goal. Even if you don’t finish
with a solution, because you took an agile
approach, you’ll at least walk away with
strong insights, ideas, and concepts.
MIX IN
DIVERSITY
BE
AGILE
Design Thinking Process
Empathize Define
Ideate
Prototype
Test
Design Thinking
Agile Development
Lean UX

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“Regardless of profession or title, at some
level we are all hired to do the same job.
We are all problem solvers, paid to anticipate,
identify, prevent, and solve problems within
our areas of expertise. This applies to any job,
at any level, in any organization,
anywhere in the world...” — Martin Yate
09We talked about how important keeping
an agile mindset is. It is equally
important to be able to recognize when
you are not making progress. Especially if
you’re working on a timed challenge, you
don’t have time to linger over issues for
very long.
If your team is arguing over something or
just plain stuck, use that established
structure and agile mindset to regain
your inertia. The focus should always be
on moving forward and making progress.
Keep moving, even if that means only
taking small steps forward at times.
KNOW WHEN
TO MOVE ON
10So, you’ve completed your first
hackathon—don’t let all those fabulous
insights stop with its participants at the
end of the event. Identify what worked
well and what didn’t, and document
them for your next hackathon. Or, think
bigger and use what you learned from
working in the microcosm of the
hackathon to apply insights to the
business as a whole, if possible.
Sharing what you’ve learned with the rest
of the organization can not only create a
level of comfort with the hackathon
concept but also help you perfect your
craft. Additionally, it will help to establish
your company’s unique brand of
hackathons and establish hackathons in
your culture.
SHARE LESSONS
LEARNED

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11 12This might go without saying, but
your follow through matters. Some
hackathons end with a fully viable
solution. Others might not, and that’s
okay! The collective ideas and concepts
that you’re left with can still be used to
build great things after the hackathon.
But that’s only possible if everything is
collected in a knowledge management
database where ideas can be considered
for future use.
This information can be the seed for
future hackathons or future solutions that
just need a little more nurturing in order
to take shape. Great ideas and work
should not be forgotten, and great care
should be taken to let your participants
know that this is the case.
At the end of your challenge, you’ll have a
number of artifacts—maybe a solution or
maybe just ideas and concepts.
Encourage, and embrace, the accidental
by putting these pieces in a public,
open-source domain. You might be
surprised who stumbles upon your ideas
and solutions, and the unlikely new
solutions they can create from them.
This practice is a force multiplier for
moving your ideas beyond the end of
the hackathon. It’s also how many
businesses learn from one another—and
adds credibility to your organization to
establish you as a thought leader.
IT’S NOT OVER
WHEN ITS OVER
ENCOURAGE THE
ACCIDENTAL

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IF I FIND 10,000 WAYS
SOMETHING WON’T
WORK, I HAVEN’T FAILED.
I AM NOT DISCOURAGED,
BECAUSE EVERY WRONG
ATTEMPT DISCARDED
IS OFTEN A STEP
FORWARD.”
– THOMAS EDISON

11
Planning Guides
Okay, so you know what a hackathon is, what its benefits are, and some best
practices. You’ve decided a hackathon is the right move for your business. Start
by asking yourself these questions in order to best position your organization to
reap the benefits.
FIRST
What is the problem you’re trying to
solve? What is the scope of your
challenge? How will you define
success?
SECOND
Do you have the technology, time,
funds, space, facilitators, expertise,
physical and/or virtual space, and other
partners to successfully host?
THIRD
Will the outcome/solution generate
new business or somehow benefit the
organization?
FOURTH
Whom are you solving a problem for?
FIFTH
Does your hackathon’s purpose align
with the organization’s broader
business goals?
SIXTH
Do you need to pull in a sponsor,
partner, or communities of stake-
holders that would help?
Getting started
Use the pre-event checklist at right
to help define your challenge scope
and your audience(s). Photocopy it,
tear it out of this booklet—do what
you need to do.
This would be a good time to look back
at page 2 to review the different types
of hackathons before moving on.
Which approach is right for you?

12
THE BEST WAY TO
PREDICT THE FUTURE
IS TO CREATE IT.”
– ABRAHAM LINCOLN

13
Planning Guides
You’ve decided a hackathon is the right idea for your business and you know
which approach you’re going to take. Now it’s time to think tactically and build
an operational outline of a successful challenge.
FIRST
Set the stage. Develop your challenge
and define your problem set. Get at
the granular levels of your problem—
whom is the problem solving for?
Why do they need it? Where will it be
used? How do you want users to feel
about it?
SECOND
Gather your data. Decide who is (or
isn’t) participating and when and
where (virtually?) you’re hosting it.
Figure out your data requirements and
identify the kinds of technologies you’ll
have at your disposal during your
hackathon. Figure out if this will be an
internal endeavor or if you could
outsource at least part of the problem.
Set the Stage
Let’s consider the stages of a hackathon: use the checklist below as your operational guide.
THIRD
Decide what to do. Create a game
plan for your actual hackathon. It
might be helpful to form teams, set
deadlines, and work backward from a
decided-upon release date. Make time
for brainstorming guided by your
observation and business insights.
Include an ideation phase where you’ll
cycle in and out of ideas quickly—
these should be documented.
Pre-structure how you’ll rapidly
prototype the winning idea that
comes out of the ideation phase.
FOURTH
Wrap it up. Agree upon a release date
(or time) when the work will stop. Plan
to document lessons learned and share
with the team and business at large.
Decide if another team outside of the
hackathon will build upon your final
outcome(s) or if a client will take bring it
to full maturity.
Don’t know how to answer some of these questions to put these actions into practice?
That’s where Booz Allen can help. We’ve got the expertise you need in to run a successful
hackathon, and we can guide you every step of the way. (Read about hackathons we’ve
helped with on page 17!)

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THE CRITICAL
INGREDIENT IS GETTING
OFF YOUR BUTT AND
DOING SOMETHING.”
– NOLAN BUSHNELL

15
Registration and snacks
Opening remarks
Defining the problem
Ideas pitch
Form teams
Building closes
Doors open
Breakfast
Team check-in
Lunch
Speaker 1
Dinner
Mentor Feedback
Speaker 2
Building closes
Doors open
Breakfast
Team check-in
Lunch
Presentations due
Dinner
Presentations start
Winners announced
Event ends
Planning Guides
Now that you’ve scaled out the big-picture approach of your hackathon, it’s time
to get into the details. Creating a schedule for your challenge will keep everyone
on the same page and help you identify if anything’s missing.
Sample Timeline
It can be hard to know what to schedule into your hackathon, so here’s a guide:
FRIDAY
6:00 p.m.
7:00 p.m.
7:30 p.m.
8:00 p.m.
9:00 p.m.
12:00 a.m.
SATURDAY
8:00 a.m.
8:30 a.m.
10:00 a.m.
12:00 p.m.
12:30 p.m.
5:00 p.m.
6:00 p.m.
7:00 p.m.
12:00 a.m.
SUNDAY
8:00 a.m.
8:30 a.m.
10:00 a.m.
11:00 a.m.
3:00 p.m.
4:00 p.m.
6:00 p.m.
7:30 p.m.
8:00 p.m.
The first day is all
about laying the
groundwork for a
successful event; get
everyone excited and
on the same page.
Day two is full of
activity. Keep
everyone on track
with planned
check-ins, breaks,
and inspiring
speakers.
The third (and often
final) day of a
hackathon can fly
by! Make sure
everyone is aware of
final presentation
times, and be sure
to announce the
solutions at the
end of the event.
Key times Team-related Host-related

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We can tell you everything we know about hackathons,
but we also want to show you how hackathons work.
So we’ve highlighted three recent hackathons that Booz
Allen has helped facilitate, including one hackathon we
held internally. Each example had a different objective,
used a different kind of structure, and resulted in
various types of solutions and outcomes. Some were
competitive, some weren’t. One was completed in a
single day, while another spanned 72 hours.
These examples prove the flexibility of the hackathon
model, but should also reinforce that the overarching,
accepted hackathon principles should be a part of
every challenge.

17
Transportation Hackathon
Booz Allen hosted a one-day hackathon on Saturday, April 23, 2016. This event
was designed to engage Booz Allen employees to identify and address several
transportation industry analytics needs—namely, in the age of connected vehicles
(CVs), how can cities better manage their transportation assets in a secure way?
STRUCTURE: The organizational team
(two POCs, six volunteers, nine mentors,
and five judges) created 10 six-person,
pre-determined teams before the event.
They included a mix of experienced and
inexperienced, knowledgeable and
technically capable participants. The list of
teams was sent out ahead of time. Some
teams were remote in Boston.
The three challenges for the event were
also predetermined. The teams could
choose to elaborate on any one of the three.
The topics were 1) an analytics dashboard
for connected vehicles, 2) a smart-city
dashboard, or 3) a Federal Aviation
Administration airport challenge.
OUTCOMES: Ten final presentations and 10
dashboards were developed. Two dashboards
were built upon further after the event and
used for proposals. There were also brown
bags, an account leads meeting, and a
segment during the Transportation Account
All-Hands meeting dedicated to the event.
The winning team created the Boston City
Dashboard, which measured future
connectedness, livability, and transportation
prospects in Boston communities. It used a
number of variables like bus stops, charging
stations, crime rates, income, and demo-
graphic metrics to predict neighborhood
connectivity.
OBJECTIVES: There were five objectives
for this hackathon:
1. Identify new analytics models for
connected vehicles.
2. Raise awareness about the
transportation market.
3. Provide training to employees
4. Create great networking opportunities
5. Identify new data scientists across
the firm.
AUDIENCE: The hackathon was open to
the entire firm and ended up drawing 80
internal participants. Data scientists, IT
strategists, process improvement
specialists, subject matter experts, and
data analysts all participated.
TIMELINE: The pre-hackathon planning
took two and half months, from the initial
idea on February 1, 2016 to the day of the
event on April 23, 2016 in Mclean, VA.
Check out the winning dashboard at https://smbah.shinyapps.io/BostonCity/

18
Hack the Machine Connected Ship Hackathon
In February 2017, the Naval Postgraduate School’s Center for Cyber Warfare, in
partnership with Booz Allen Hamilton and the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental,
hosted the U.S. Navy’s first-ever connected ship hackathon to tap into top millennial
cyber experts and expose them to maritime cybersecurity use cases and challenges.
STRUCTURE: The hackathon included
three in-person components over the
course of 72 hours: a maritime capture-the-
flag game that allowed participants to test
their hacking skills against Booz Allen’s
“boat in a box” a physical connected ship
communication interface; a competition to
design algorithms that provide maritime
domain awareness, identify anomalous
behavior, and solve real world problems
like human trafficking and piracy; and a
design thinking sprint that targeted safer
alternatives to GPS for maritime Precision
Navigation and Timing. Additionally, virtual
participants competed in a rapid user
experience crowdsourcing challenge to
provide an interface that created maritime
scenarios and, using system data,
highlighted inaccuracies in the scenario
over time
OUTCOMES: The U.S. Navy walked away
from the hackathon with 10 winning
solutions that they could further develop to
improve the safety and efficiency of
maritime cybersecurity, data science for
safer oceans, and next-generation design
for PNT alternatives. The biggest win of all
for the U.S. Navy was successfully exposing
300 industry and new technical talent to
the U.S. Navy’s maritime cybersecurity use
cases and challenges.
OBJECTIVE: The primary objective of the
hackathon was to build a robust commu-
nity of maritime cybersecurity talent from
among a diverse pool of candidates in
Austin, Texas.
AUDIENCE: There were 302 on-site, and
550 online participants. Collectively, they
had expertise in anti-jamming, spoofing,
position, navigation, timing (PNT), and
software defined radio. Their represented
diverse backgrounds as many of them
were IT Security, Radio Frequency
Hackers, Capture the Flag Players,
Industrial Control Engineers, as well as
U.S. Navy, DIUx, top academics, and local
Austin startup members.
TIMELINE: Hack the Machine was a
three-day event hosted February 16 to 19,
2017 in Capital Factory in Austin, Texas.
Check out a video of the hackathon at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
CrMNnG0Zp0A&feature=youtu.be

19
Baseball Analytics Hackathon
The Baltimore Orioles and Booz Allen Hamilton hosted the Baseball Analytics
Hackathon on February 5, 2016, at Camden Yards to discover new ways to
change the game through data science. The top prize was four box seats to an
Orioles game for each member of the winning team.
STRUCTURE: Participants were allowed
to register as a team or as an individual.
Teams could be between three to six
people. Orioles executives and expert data
scientists were the judges of the competi-
tive challenge and prizes were awarded to
the winning projects. Both open source
data repositories as well as unique
datasets were provided to the participants
so that they could hack a better solution.
OUTCOMES: Twenty-two teams submitted
solutions and presented their findings
across a wide range of approaches,
visualizations, and analytic complexity.
Booz Allen made 14 direct connections
with interested prospective data science
hires and furthered a relationship with a
Defense client, as he was a judge and
gave the closing remarks.
OBJECTIVE: To bring together data-
minded baseball fans to further develop
the statistical models and analytics
needed to help baseball organizations field
the best team possible.
AUDIENCE: The hackathon welcomed data
scientists, machine learning, and artificial
intelligence experts (who may or may not
also love baseball).
TIMELINE: The hackathon was a one-day
event held at Camden Yards.
Check out the winning dashboard at https://public.tableau.com/profile/alexandria4237#!/
vizhome/ExpectedOutcomes/Dashboard1

20
What is a Booz Allen hackathon?
A hackathon is an event where a diverse
team comes together to collaboratively
solve a problem. Problems can be worked
in parallel to solve a holistic problem set,
or hackathons can be run in a series to
continue iterating on a solution. A
hackathon can take many forms. It can be
about a specific technical problem or
about a general organizational challenge.
The value in a Booz Allen hackathon is its
ability to bring together experts from
varied backgrounds—from marketing and
design thinking to systems delivery and
change management. We believe that the
best solutions are built through
collaboration among bright minds with
diverse perspectives and skills. It’s a great
opportunity for an organization to tap into
its talent and raw brainpower to create
dynamic change.
What is the purpose of a hackathon?
A hackathon is meant to develop a
solution to a pressing problem, whether
that means process improvement,
designing a new product, or sparking
social change.
All of the hackathons I’ve heard about
require participants to have computer
science or cybersecurity backgrounds.
Is Booz Allen’s idea of a hackathon
like that?
No. While many hackathons focus on
coding and computer science, Booz Allen
recognizes that hackathons can take many
forms. We believe a hackathon can and
should be adapted to whatever process
improvement an organization hopes to
drive. In fact, the best hackathons include
participants from a wide variety of
backgrounds because a diversity of
perspectives will create a stronger, more
sustainable solution.
How many people should participate in
a hackathon?
There is no minimum or maximum
number of participants needed. We would
encourage you to focus on the diversity
of your participants, rather than the
number of them. This approach allows
organizations to tailor hackathons to their
goals and values.
What happens during a hackathon?
Booz Allen representatives will guide
your organization through the entire
process. We will help you prepare, plan,
and define/refine your problem sets, as
well as help you structure fast-paced
ideation sessions, mini courses, and
informational presentations on the day(s)
of the event. We work closely with you to
customize the event to your needs. Every
hackathon is different, but no matter the
goal or the structure, we make sure your
hackathon efforts are maximized so that
your organization gets the best outcomes.
Frequently Asked Questions

Let’s do this! Reach out to our leaders below to find out how Booz Allen
can help run your company’s most successful hackathon ever.
We can’t wait to hear about the creative ideas you have!
Brandon Dube
Hackathon Architect
Washington, DC
Dube_Brandon@bah.com
Brian MacCarthy
Director of San Francisco
Innovation Hub
San Francisco, CA
MacCarthy_Brian2@bah.com
Anastasiya Olds
Hackathon Strategist
Washington, DC
Olds_Anastasiya@bah.com
We would like to thank all of our writers, reviewers, editors, and contributors: Jen Aranyi,
Stephen Arlington, Sarah Bell, Brandon Dube, Alison Jarris, Patrick Johnson, Monika
Kowalczykowski, Ivan Kuo, Kimberly Lofgren, Brian MacCarthy, Mary Mallampalli,
Toblyn Nishi, Anastasiya Olds, Erin Prah, Evan Schalton, and Barry Scharfman.

BOOZALLEN.COM© 2017 Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc.
About Booz Allen
Booz Allen Hamilton has been at the forefront
of strategy and technology for more than 100 years.
Today, the firm provides management and technology
consulting and engineering services to leading
Fortune 500 corporations, governments, and
not-for-profits across the globe. Booz Allen partners
with public and private sector clients to solve their
most difficult challenges through a combination of
consulting, analytics, mission operations, technology,
systems delivery, cybersecurity, engineering,
and innovation expertise.
With international headquarters in McLean, Virginia,
the firm employs more than 22,600 people globally
and had revenue of $5.41 billion for the 12 months
ended March 31, 2016. To learn more, visit
BoozAllen.com. (NYSE: BAH)

You Can Hack That: How to Use Hackathons to Solve Your Toughest Challenges

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