It’s almost a wrap on 2023! A lot happened this year and we’re taking a look back at hackathons at Devpost. 2023 was a busy year for hackathons. It isn’t surprising—everyone from product marketers to innovation leaders has been under added pressure to deliver results this year, and hackathons are a proven way to make a big impact in a short time frame.

It also wouldn’t be a true 2023 recap without mentioning AI. Companies worldwide are trying to learn how to use AI as quickly as possible to get ahead and avoid falling behind. We saw this in both public and internal hackathons.

Speaking of internal hackathons, we’re excited to continue growing our Devpost for Teams (DFT) platform and shared some details below about the internal hackathons we powered this year.

So, without further ado, let’s take a look at hackathons powered by Devpost.com in 2023.

Hackathon stats

Hackathons are at the heart of what we do, so let’s start there. In 2023, Devpost’s public platform had:

• 1,200+ hackathons
• 1.4 million new users

Hackathon trends

#1 AI hackathons

As mentioned above, 2023 was the year of AI hackathons. In total, 296 machine learning/AI hackathons were launched this year.

We’re expecting this trend to continue into 2024. Here are a few resources to help you get started with running AI hackathons:

• Free guide: How to run an AI hackathon
• Blog post: What AI means for hackathons
• Q&A: How AI is changing the world of hackathons [recap]

#2 Growth in hackathon engagement

In 2023, average engagement in Devpost-managed hackathons has increased in the following areas:

• 28% increase in the average number of registrants
• 17% increase in the average number of submitters
• 25% increase in the number of project submissions

#3 More in-person hackathons

We’ve seen an increase in the number of in-person hackathons in 2023—for both public and internal hackathons. This isn’t totally surprising, given that the number of in-person events has been low since the pandemic. Even now, most in-person hackathons have the option of online participation to accommodate wider audiences.

Here’s a look at the growth in participation in public in-person hackathons:

• 75% increase in competition registrations
• 79% increase in users who submitted projects
• 88% increase in project submissions

Top public hackathons of 2023

Now, let’s look at some of the standout hackathons on Devpost in 2023. There were too many great events to include them all, so we narrowed down the list by looking at hackathons managed by Devpost.

These are the top 5 hackathons of 2023 by the number of registrants:

1. Microsoft AI Classroom Hackathon (3,496 participants)
2. Google’s Immersive Geospatial Challenge (2,741 participants)
3. Square + Google AI Hackathon (2,475 participants)
4. Chainlink Spring 2023 Hackathon (2,423 participants)
5. Docker AI/ML Hackathon (2,313 participants)

Note: Data was pulled before the end of the year, so some hackathons were still ongoing.

User stats

Let’s shift gears and focus on the folks who bring their creativity and ingenuity to hackathons—our users.

We welcomed nearly 1.4 million new users to Devpost in 2023! Let’s get to know them.

Top user locations

One of the best parts of online hackathons is that they attract participants from around the world. Here are the countries where most users participated in 2023:

1. India
2. United States
3. Canada
4. Nigeria
5. United Kingdom

In total, Devpost users from 163 countries registered for hackathons this year.

Get to know Devpost users

We love shining the spotlight on our users! Read these user stories to get to know a few of our community members.

• User Story: Inside Gaurav's 11-Year Journey on Devpost
• User Story: Mitchell’s Journey to Enhance Healthcare with Machine Learning
• User Story: How Crystal’s Love for Hackathons Inspired Her to Host Her Own

A look at Devpost for Teams

Did you know that Devpost has a platform for private, invite-only hackathons? Devpost for Teams (DFT) is a recent addition to our product lineup, and we’re thrilled that businesses are using it to spark innovation through internal hackathons.

Here’s how businesses are leveraging internal hackathons with DFT:

• How Okta Engaged More Employees in Its Hackathons With Devpost for Teams
• How Finastra Ignites Employee Innovation With Hackathons and Devpost for Teams
• How Healthcare Bluebook Leveled Up Its Internal Hackathons With Devpost for Teams

We’re working on improving DFT every day, and we launched some pretty cool features in 2023 (if we do say so ourselves). Some of our favorites include:

• Guest hackathons: Allows hackathon organizers to seamlessly invite individuals and entire teams to participate in private hackathons, like customer hackathons
• Project templates: Gives hackathon participants a starting point as they build their projects, and helps organizers streamline judging since all projects are formatted the same way
• Hackathon templates for organizers: Allows organizers to easily set up new hackathons with a pre-set or customized template
• AI hackathon template: Gives organizers a leg up in creating AI hackathons since the template comes fully loaded with AI and LLM resources to help participants
• Team building tools: Makes it easy for hackathon participants to find teams and join projects based on their specialty

Preparing for 2024

That’s a wrap on Devpost in 2023. We’re so grateful to all of the hackathon organizers, businesses, and community members using Devpost. See you next year!

‍Ready to kick-start your 2024 hackathons? Contact our team to start planning your next hackathon.