How to win ANY hackathon with Serial winner

Описание: I invited a girl I once competed against to the podcast.

In this first episode of Learn with World-Class Minds, I sit down with Alba, a serial hackathon winner who has consistently reached the podium at major hackathons, including Meta, Hugging Face, Mistral, OpenAI, and Scaleway.

In this episode, Alba shares concrete, honest insights on what really makes a hackathon-winning project — from forming the right team and crafting a strong pitch, to handling vague themes, broken demos, jury expectations, and the subtle dynamics people rarely talk about.

Whether you’re preparing for your first hackathon, feeling intimidated by competition, or aiming to finally reach the podium, this episode will give you practical, actionable guidance.

🧠 What you’ll learn in this episode:

How to get started in hackathons

The biggest misconceptions about hackathons

How to build the right team (technical & non-technical roles)

What to build first: demo, prototype, story, or slides

The secret sauce of a great pitch

How juries think and evaluate projects

What to do when your demo breaks

How to use mentors’ feedback effectively

Real talk on confidence, competition, and sleep deprivation

🔔 About the series
Learn with World-Class Minds is a serie of videos where we invite exceptional builders and thinkers to break down how they approach challenges — not to glorify success, but to extract the lessons behind it.

If you found this episode useful, don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share.

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS

00:00 – Intro
01:15 – How did Alba get into her first hackathon?
02:21 – How does she define a hackathon?
04:03 – The biggest misconception about hackathons
05:38 – Alba’s secret to winning hackathons

07:56 – The most valuable skills in a hackathon team
10:04 – How to form the right team
11:36 – should you team up with friends or strangers ?
12:39 – Do you need a non-technical person on the team?

14:03 – Does Alba participate as a technical member?
14:55 – What should be built first: demo, prototype, slides, or story?

18:07 – The secret sauce of a great pitch
19:49 – How Alba thinks like a jury

20:49 – Recovery plan when the demo breaks
23:19 – What to do when the theme is vague
25:16 – How to use mentors’ feedback effectively

27:47 – Are hackathons male-dominated?
29:40 – Subtle dynamics people don’t talk about
31:51 – Actionable tips for first-time participants
33:04 – For people who want to join a hackathon but feel intimidated

37:31 – Sleep deprivation during hackathons

42:44 – Final advice