hackathon

noun

hack·a·thon ˈha-kə-ˌthän

plural hackathons

: an event in which computer programmers collaborate intensively with one another and sometimes with people in other specialties over a relatively short period of time to create code usually for a new software product or service

The goal of a hackathon is to create a prototype of an idea in record time—often over a single weekend. For the ambitious software developer, that usually means no rest or leafy greens.—

Kristen V. Brown

It's a hackathon—a contest to pitch, program, and present a functioning Android mobile application in 48 hours.—

Steven Leckart

In the past, she's led students in accessibility hackathons where they designed sensor systems for wheelchairs and a game for the blind.—

Brittany Britto

Examples of hackathon in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web In the collaborative spirit of hackathons, individuals learn by doing, a principle that stands at the heart of educational philosophies that champion active learning. —

Sandy Carter, Forbes, 27 Feb. 2024 Encouraging employees to engage in peer-to-peer learning, participate in hackathons or attend industry conferences can foster an environment of continuous improvement and innovation. —

Somdip Dey, Forbes, 28 Mar. 2024 For example, the engineering recruiting team hosts hackathons while the sales recruiting team hosts events at baseball games. —

Paige McGlauflin, Fortune, 11 Mar. 2024 Recruiting or promoting talent, increasing budgets, and sponsoring hackathons are important to injecting new ideas into a business. —

Joe McKendrick, Forbes, 17 Feb. 2024 Hundreds of bright young technologists have landed in California this weekend for a two-day hackathon — a quintessential start-up contest in which teams of coders race to build software. —

Elizabeth Dwoskin, Washington Post, 17 Feb. 2024 Designers then worked on the projects part-time for six months,instead of the two or three days common in hackathons. —

Bynicholas Gordon, Fortune, 30 Oct. 2023 Moonlight continued to be improved and expanded upon at hackathons like MHacks and HackCWRU (Case Western) and then as an open-source GitHub repository. —

Kevin Purdy, Ars Technica, 1 Apr. 2023 In total, the inaugural e-voting hackathon turned up at least 18 new vulnerabilities to e-voting and e-poll book systems. —

IEEE Spectrum, 3 Aug. 2017

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'hackathon.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.