Corporate Sponsorship in Hackathons

Hackathons are a way for computer programmers to come together and rapidly prototype their bizarre ideas. These events demonstrate the pinnacle of technological innovation--where everything, literally anything, is possible. On the flip side, organizing a hackathon is a lucrative business. Corporations are able to find limitless marketing and developmental potential in such events. This post analyzes the specific objectives each industry has in funding events hackathons.

Technology Business Consulting Firms

This industry profits primarily from intellectual property. A hackathon is where the newest technologies are being used. Some of the products created during this event are also new to the industry. Since all projects are supposedly open-source during this event, consulting firms are free to capitalize on the participants' intellectual property. This incentive is often highlighted in agreements made between the consulting firm and the hackathon organization, where an article would be dedicated to the use of ideas demonstrated at the event. In spite of the enthusiasm of consulting firms, such collaborations are rare due to the inability of such firms to contribute to the event. Consulting firms that are interested in such collaborations are often small and less capable of providing monetary donations.

Startup Incubators
The main source of income for startup incubators is enthusiastic engineers who would like to make their ideas into reality. The rapid-prototyping environment of a hackathon encourages such behavior. In a short amount of time, usually 24-hours, participants build an entire marketable product from scratch and pitch their ideas, similar to how a startup would pitch its idea to potential investors. As such, the event is full of startup potential, where incubators can make the most profit. Startup incubators often offer lucrative sponsorship deals in exchange for recruitment opportunities, promotion, and attendee information.

Technology Companies
Technology companies are a broad category, however, their objectives usually align. A company that offers software license often seek to appeal to young developers, allowing their software to take root in the next generation of consumers. These software companies offer free licenses to hackathon attendees, which allows them to have a feel for the company's software. Usually, there is no monetary sponsorship for these types of companies, because hackathons also benefit by taking advantage of the new possibilities unlocked by the software. For instance, Unity offers partnerships with hackathons by providing there professional software, which unlocks more complex game development, adding on to the excitement of the event.
Software companies aside, tech companies in general look for branding and recruitment opportunities at hackathons. Companies can promote their brand at hackathons by distributing "swag," or company-exclusive merchandise. This is beneficial to the hackathon organization because most of their consumers are involved in the field of technology, and recognize these brands and their exclusive merch. This adds excitement and legitimacy to the hackathon and allows companies to promote their brands. In terms of recruitment, tech companies, much like consulting firms, look for interesting ideas implemented. However, the time limitation rarely permits attendees to implement their ideas to their full potential. As such, tech companies seek to recruit these talents that would add value to their products by introducing innovation. This is also the reason why many hackathon organizations reach out to human resources (HR) departments in tech companies for sponsorship opportunities.
It is worth noting that most of a hackathon's funding comes from this category of business. This is in part due to the fact that the tech industry holds much greater monetary value compared to other aforementioned businesses. In addition, often with a physical product to market, these companies seek further branding opportunities through workshops, interactive activities, product demos and so on. To take full advantage of this incentive, hackathons often highlight sponsorship tiers which include different forms of promotion, extracting funding from these tech companies.
The final objective of these companies is community engagement. Due to the size of the tech industry and its competitive market, companies are encouraged to engage with the community in order to appeal to consumers at a deeper level. It is especially encouraging when a hackathon organization has nonprofit status, which converts a company's charitable contributions to deductions on a corporate tax return. Companies such as VMware have various community outreach departments, including the high school hackathon department, for this very purpose.

Nonprofit Organizations
Many hackathons seek to bring together a diverse group of people who are interested in the field of technology. Often times hackathon organizations aim to eliminate gender barriers and other social issues concerning the field as a part of their educational and competitive nature. This appeals to nonprofit organizations that have various initiatives which may align with the hackathon organizations. For example, the NASA Ames Education and Public Engagement department strives to promote education in STEM, which motivates them to sponsor high school-level hackathons.

Final Thought: Hackathons for Profit
While nonprofit hackathon organizations are a rising trend in the United States, most hackathons held in the country are hosted by huge tech companies and institutions with the same incentives as highlighted above. With this huge variety of industries with their own private interests willing to support a hackathon, the hackathon industry is a very profitable one. In fact, hackathons in other fields are a rising trend as well. There are biotechnology hackathons, medical hackathons, social engineering hackathons, mathematical modeling hackathons, business hackathons and so on. At this point, the word "hackathon" has become a general term for a competitive event that seeks to solve certain issues. In a sense, a hackathon for a certain industry is analogous to a gaming event in the entertainment industry. Its educational value has stalled its development into a profitable business. However, hackathons stand at the intersection of interests from multiple parties. Capitalizing on this interest may prove to be the next big venture that will come with great rewards.