P
pear
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TLDR:
I'm 13 and I'm a student living in Hanoi. Seven weeks ago, I thought: "should I create a hackathon?". Today, that same idea has turned into a free, online hackathon for ages 13-18 with around 50 registrants from 15 countries, with over $10,000 worth of prizes and four judges. Here's what worked in my process, what failed, and what it takes to run such an event for people my own age.
A few days ago, I sent a message to a stranger on Discord inviting him to my hackathon. He replied that, well, he was only just starting to learn unity, but then said something that really surprised me. He also ran a small web development agency, and wanted to know whether he could sponsor us.
Right within the hour of contact, he'd offered to build websites for our winners, and just a few hours later, it was done and on paper: all six winning teams get a one-page website as well as a year of free hosting, worth $2500.
I think that just sums up my experience hosting this hackathon really, really well. What works are personal things, small things and often unglamorous things. Almost nothing goes the way you plan.
Why I started Checkpoint
The hackathon I'm talking about is called Checkpoint. It's a free hackathon series for anyone aged 13-18, anywhere in the world. Our first event, checkpoint 1 — games for good, runs online from 8 to 10 January 2027. On the weekend, our teams build a game that does something beyond entertaining: teaching a skill, raising awareness, supporting people usually left out, etc etc.
I started it because the hacks I found didn't fit me. Most run on US/European time, which can mean 2 days turn into 1 and lost hours of sleep. Many also assume that you know what you're doing when joining a "hackathon" (you mostly don't). And hacks without a theme ("build anything") don't work, because that's a hard, hard place to start when you've never built a game before (as many of our participants haven't).
So, Checkpoint works the opposite way:
- It starts at 7p.m Hanoi time,
- It's designed for those who've never finished a game, and nearly half of our registrants haven't,
- AI tools allowed as long as you say how you used them,
- If you don't finish, you submit anyway.
The less-than-glamorous parts
The website and Devpost took a day or two. Everything else took much, much longer.
Money and legal status is crucial. Sponsors want to deal with organizations, not a 13-year old messing around. In Vietnam, setting up a nonprofit means going through government ministries as a 13-year old, which isn't realistic (at all). The answer to this was fiscal sponsorship: Checkpoint runs under the Hack Foundation, a US 501(C)(3) nonprofit that hosts student projects through Hack Club's HCB, although the distinction matters: we aren't a registered nonprofit ourselves, and one of my early emails got that wrong.
Safety, safety, safety. Most of our participants are minors. We need a code of conduct, and participants need parent approval. Judges, mentors or sponsors aren't allowed to message participants privately. Mentoring takes place completely in public, and judges agree to all of this in writing. Most underestimate how much this matters, including me, but turns out this policy is the first thing a teacher, parent or serious sponsor asks about first because of the protection it offers to their reputation.
Getting sponsors when you're 13
I sent a lot of sponsorship emails, most with no reply, without even someone reading it. It's VERY normal.
What worked was asking for the right thing. Companies whose products cost basically nothing for them, or prizes that aren't cash, which are hard to pay out or physical prizes, which are terrible for logistics. Every prize is something our builders can and will use:
- CraftPix, with memberships and games assets for all winning teams plus a free asset library
- gen.xyz, with a free one-year .xyz domain for all submitters
- 1Password family plan for one winning team
- CodeCrafters memberships for the top three teams
- Formaloo credits
- A custom-built one-page website by HCL Studio and a year of hosting for all six winning teams.
My personal favorite is the domain. It's to everyone who finishes, not just the winners and a place for each team to put what they built/
I also learned to (WHATtTtT?) reject sponsors. Some offers were free trials that turned into subscriptions, others were adult products, and some didn't matter to a 13 year-old building their first game. My rule here is simple: if a 13-year-old can't use it without a paid account, it isn't a "prize".
What I got wrong
I put dollar values on the prizes, attracting the wrong people and making aggregator sites be misled. Numbers on prizes attract the wrong people: registrants in their twenties, accounts that were businesses, yadi-yadi-yada. When HackerNoon included us in a roundup of hackathons this season, it described our prizes as cash, and none of them are. Now I describe prizes mainly by what they are.
I made the rules too clever as well. At first, 18-year-olds could enter only if they weren't full time uni students. That's a simple rule right? Until you get people who read the Devpost listing saying 13-18 and enter, and then you have to decide each registrant, sending emails and emails at a time. I simplified it: 13 to 18 on the date of the hack, simple enough.
I accidentally said things that my own data couldn't support. Firstly, our site said most had never finished a game, but then I counted: that would've only been right if most was 45%. Just under half, not most. Everything I said gets copied down by everyone, including AI assistants, so check your numbers.
Perhaps most detrimental, I tried to do it alone. For the first month I was the only organiser. Two, three friends now have joined in supporting me, and they're responsible for an insane amount of the prize pool value, the logistics, etc etc.
Where people come from
Our first 47 registrants come from 15 countries, from the US to Kyrgyzstan. Here's how they found us:
- Devpost own's listings and friends telling friends
- Hack Club's community
- AI assistants
- Instagram and Facebook Groups
- Personal Discord messages.
Strangely, big posts in big communities (OPEN SIGNUPS! JOIN NOW!!!!) did very little. Personal messages did a lot. A few days ago, I began messaging five people a day on Discord who were into making games, into hackathons and game jams, each with a personal message. On my first day, around half of those I messaged were interested in registering.
The big catch with Discord is that saying yes in a chat is easy, but truly registering and submitting is a different thing. On my second day, most people said they were in or had gotten back with a no, but almost none had actually registered because it takes much more time to fill in a form and participate. You need to follow up.
What's next
I've always had big goals, and Checkpoint won't be a one-off. After our pilot event comes our Checkpoint Journeys: in-person hackathons that our team personally runs, starting in Hanoi in March 2027, then Ho Chi Minh City, then Singapore that December. Online Checkpoints run semi-annually, so Checkpoint 2 runs in July.
The in-person events are my worry: costing real money, venues, food, travel... That's where sponsors are hardest to find, and that's where sponsorship goes.
If you're interested in running something like this
- Message people one at a time; that beats big posts in communities where you won't be ranked first.
- Ask for what your audience can use personally after the event.
- Write the safety rules before you need them, because adults will ask, and at that point if you don't have any, you don't have a partner.
- Check EVERY SINGLE NUMBER before it goes public, because someone will undoubtedly read it and share it/
- Don't completely do it alone. Even one co-organiser removes half of your duties.
Join us
checkpoint 1 — games for good runs online from 8 to 10 January 2027. It's free, for anyone aged 13 to 18, and built for beginners who've never finished a game. All prizes are in-kind, none are in cash. You can register here.
If you'd like to judge, mentor or sponsor a future event, write to [email protected]. and if you're a teenager with an idea to build something like this, start smaller, and most importantly, start now.
Disclosure: I organise Checkpoint.