Overview

This Partner Event Policy explains how Hackathons UK Limited ("us", "we", "our") will collaborate with Partner Events.

What does it mean for an event to partner with Hackathons UK?

This varies depending on whether the event is digital, in-person or hybrid.

In all cases, Hackathons UK endeavours to provide value to hackers, organisers, and other stakeholders of the event.

For the purpose of this document, a Partner Event is one in which the event's organisers and we mutually agree to partner as agreed in writing. This policy serves as the foundation of even partnerships, however, an event is not formally partnered until a full partnership agreement is signed by both parties.

How COVID-19 impacts the events we partner with

We do not partner with events that break the law or endanger people's safety by facilitating or encouraging in-person gatherings when local laws or regulations forbid this. Before partnering with events we require that they provide both their risk assessment and the details of what COVID-19 related regulations they will be following.

Prerequisites for event partnership

Hackathons UK welcomes partnership requests from the diverse pool of events and organisations running hackathons. As a charitable organisation, Hackathons UK has a small number of requirements on events and organisations with which it partners. Specifically, all partner events (or the groups that run them, e.g. societies) must:

• Be clearly and demonstrably for the advancement of education;

  • The focus of the event needs to be around encouraging learning;

• Cannot be a 'for-profit' event;

  • The group must be a registered charity (e.g. students' union), a community interest company (CIC) or similar not-for-profit organisation;

  • Monies generated from any and all sources (e.g. sponsorship, grants) must be used for the express purpose of supporting the event and group;

  • Leftover funds from the event must be used for the general running of the society or as working capital for future hackathons run by the group;

• Have no control over the intellectual property generated by participants;

  • where appropriate, encourage participants to release their work as open source, although this remains at the discretion of the participants;

  • where appropriate, encourage participants to contribute to existing open-source projects, although this remains at the discretion of the participants;

• Ensure that participation in the event is free of charge with no fees levied on attendees.

• Ensure that the event is primarily for current students, specifically, we expect that 80% of attendees are currently enrolled in formal education, or have been in the last 12 months.

What event partnership looks like

We like to partner with student-run UK hackathons. It is our intention to partner with as many UK student-run hackathons as possible which meet the prerequisites, but we reserve the right to refuse to partner with an event for any reason.

Hackathons UK's obligations

Before the event

• Offer planning support

• Promote the event on Hackathons UK's social media channels

• Add the event to hackathons.org.uk Events page

• Post stickers to events to redistribute to their attendees or local tech communities, if they intend to do so

• Add the event's organisers to our Slack workspace, either as single-channel guests or by sharing a channel into the organisers' own Slack workspace where possible

During the event

• Provide an Event Support Specialist during the days of the event

• Run a mini-event at the event

• Run a Hackiest Hack challenge and offer a prize

• Offer usage of the Hackathons UK Twitch channel, if available and agreed by both parties

After the event

• Conduct a debrief call with the event organisers

• Send a survey to event participants and pass (anonymised) responses onto the event organisers

• Post Hackathons UK prizes to prize-winners

Partner Event's obligations

Before the event

• Engage with Hackathons UK during the planning process

• Include the Hackathons UK logo on the event's website and a link to our website

• Add relevant opt-in checkboxes to the event's registration process to facilitate legal collection and sharing of participants' data

  • These checkboxes are as follows:

  • Optional Marketing Opt-In Checkbox

    I authorise Hackathons UK Limited to send me occasional messages about hackathons and their activities.

  • Required Administration Opt-In Checkbox

    I authorise you to share my application/registration information with Hackathons UK Limited for event administration, Hackathons UK Limited administration, and with my authorisation email in-line with the Hackathons UK Limited Privacy Policy.

    For the avoidance of doubt, the first mention of Hackathons UK Limited shall have a hyperlink to https://hackathons.org.uk, and the first mention of Privacy Policy shall have a hyperlink to https://hackuk.org/privacy.

During the event

• Add our Event Support Specialist/s to all digital platforms the event uses (e.g. Slack, Discord) with the same level of permission as organisers for the purposes of visibility and moderation

• Have a slot in the event's schedule for our Event Support Specialist/s to run a mini-event at the event

• Have a slot in the event's opening and closing ceremonies where our Event Support Specialist can speak for five minutes in each ceremony

  • This may be live or pre-recorded at digital and hybrid events.

• At physical events, the partner event must provide reasonable sleeping accommodation for all attendees

After the event

• Pass check-in data of those hackers who opted into data-sharing to us

• Engage with us during the debrief process

• Keep our logo on the website for at least 12 months after the event, or until the website ceases to exist or be relevant (whichever comes sooner)

Changes to this policy

This policy changes frequently due to the ever-changing nature of how we support events. We reserve the right to change this policy at any time.