Hackathon
IndustryOften spelled hack-a-thon. Sometimes called a code sprint or innovation sprint. Distinct from a longer challenge by the time pressure and team format.
A hackathon is a short, intensive event — typically 24 to 72 hours — where teams build a working prototype against a brief or open problem. The format originated in software development and now spans hardware, design, business cases, and policy.
The practical strength of a hackathon is energy and team formation: people meet collaborators they would not have found otherwise, and the time pressure forces decision-making. The practical limit is depth: a 48-hour prototype rarely becomes the most CV-relevant artefact a student produces. Hackathons are useful as one signal among many; they are weaker as the central piece of a portfolio.
On Ewance
Ewance is structurally different from a hackathon — challenges run on 1-4 week cycles, not 48 hours, and the deliverable goes through a full rubric-based assessment rather than a panel-style judging. The two are complements: a student can run several hackathons during their degree and several Ewance challenges, and the deliverables sit alongside each other in the portfolio.
Decide by doing.
The fastest way to know whether challenge-based learning fits you is to ship one.