The Organizer's Guide for Setting up MTA Hack

This guide gives you a brief overview of what you should do in order to set up the next MTA Hack in steps. For every phase, try looking at the drive's for the previous MTA Hacks (i.e presentations, money calculations, sponsorship invitations and plans).

Tip: divide your team into the following roles:

• Finance manager
• Logistics manager
• Technology manager
• Art & media manager

For any more questions you could always refer to previous hackathon organizers, they’d be happy to help :)

Phase 0

This is the very beginning of the planning, should take approximately 1.5 months, and should be done around 10 months before the hackathon.

• Talk to previous hackathon organizers
• Find two dates for the hackathon (one backup)
• Set up logos and branding
• Think of a theme for the hackathon
• Talk to dean of CS

Phase 1

Once you have completed phase 0, start with this. This phase should take about 2 months if not less. At this point you’re 8 months before the hackathon

• Update the website with your theme and dates
• Set up email accounts using improvmx
• Work on a plan to find sponsorships
  • Prices of each plan
  • What each plan gets
  • How many plans (maybe diamond?)
• Estimate how much money you’re going to need (based on previous hackathons)
• Write sponsorship invitations and flyers
• Talk to dean of CS
• Bonus: start finding contacts for sponsorships

Phase 2

This phase should be started once you have a clear understanding of what you need and how the hackathon is gonna go down, because you’re going to present it to companies.

By the end of this phase you should know your spending and have at least one sponsor.

• Create an amazing presentation for interested sponsors (see MTA Hack 2021 presentation)

• Get a better estimate on the amount of money you’re going to need based on:

  • Food (main expense)
  • Shirt printing
  • Money prize
  • See previous expenses on previous MTAHack drives

  You should have 3 different plans for expenses:

  • A worst case expense plan
    • This should be your cheapest plan, in case you can’t find enough sponsors for your hackathon
  • An average case expense plan
    • This plan should make a good hacakthon, but not a crazy one, in case things go as expected
  • A best case plan
    • In case you found more sponsors than you need, go crazy with the money! This plan should make an unforgettable hackathon.

• Find contacts for sponsors if you haven’t already

• Start sending sponsorship requests

• Find mentors and judges

• Talk to dean of CS

Phase 3

At this stage you should have enough money for the worst-case expense plan. This stage is all about marketing your hackathon to MTA.

• Get more sponsors!
• Start setting up social media
  • Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook
  • Update website
• Declare the hackathon on social media
• Develop registration platform (use EZHack or Quill, it’s amazing. See mtahack GitHub page and EZHack)
• Start researching places to order food and logistical things from
• Think of a timetable for the hackathon (what happens when)
• Plan how judging is going to work
• Talk to sponsorships and make sure that you have enough mentors
• Talk to dean of CS

Phase 4

By this phase you’re 1.5 months away from your hackathon date. Congrats! This stage is the best because you get to see your accomplishments for the work you’ve done so far. You should know exactly how much money you’re going to have by this point. The college will help you a lot with this stage, talk to Yardena.

• Design things for the hackathon
  • Flyers, posters, prize cheque, presentation, name tags, shirts
• Order your designs from the previous bullet point
• Order your food, beer, pizzas and whatever you have planned for the logistics

Phase 5

One day before the hackathon. If you have reached here, well done! You should have everything ready by today. Get your team and set up your space. Yardena will help you a lot here.

• Enjoy!