11 Top Cool Project Ideas for your Next Hackathon

Hackathon is a programming competition primarily held by organisers to find unique and innovative solutions to existing problems. Hackathons are great avenues to show your programming expertise and network with other professionals.

However, one of the most challenging aspects of hackathon preparation is coming up with hackathon project ideas. Your idea can make or break your chances of winning the competition. To help you with this task, we have prepared the following list of hackathon project ideas. 

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Hackathon: What Is It Exactly?

A hackathon is a company-sponsored event where computer enthusiasts compete to solve hardware- or software-related problems in a set amount of time, usually two days or longer. 

The main idea behind a hackathon is receiving a new wave of ideas, helping the organization to transform prototypes into production-worthy items. Moreover, the organization ends up finding the most talented and promising personnel for their internal team to hire. 

Types of Hackathons 

Over the years, hackathons have gained immense popularity given the pristine opportunity they offer to both data scientists and hackers to collaborate on hackathon winning projects that will revolutionize the life science informatic world. 

The sorts of hackathons listed below will assist you in choosing the most appropriate learning route for your productive software development adventure. 

• API, Programming Language, or Structure

• Demographic Society

• Relate to Local Tech Communities

• As a Tribute or a Memorial

• Application Type

• Code Sprints

• Internal Change and Motive

Hackathon Participation: How Can It Help You?

Hackathons offer excellent educational opportunities and prepare you for the workplace. They provide a much-needed introduction to how things work in actual situations. 

While academic projects that need hands-on work might help you develop important skills, hackathons comprehensively understand how the sector operates. It will boost your professional self-assurance. 

With the correct project ideas for hackathon, you may seize this opportunity by showcasing your worth and potential to the company. 

Top Hackathon Project Ideas

Following are some of our top hackathon project ideas. We have all kinds of hackathon projects available in the list from various sections, including web development, machine learning, and data science. You can choose one according to your skill-level and interests. 

Also, don’t hesitate in adding a personal twist to your project!

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1. Create a Blog

This is one of the best hackathon project ideas for beginners. Here, you will have to use HTML, CSS, and Javascript to create a website first. You will have to develop a unique layout for your blog and determine how many pages it would have. The blog should allow you to add posts and offer the feature of adding different media (videos, images, audio files) to make the posts richer and engaging. 

You can also use advanced web development tools for this project, such as Angular, React.js, and Node.js. This project is a great way to show your creative abilities. You can take inspiration from any blogs you like and try to imitate their layout first. 

2. Perform Data Visualisation with Python

Data visualisation refers to representing data through visuals to make it easier to understand. It helps us in finding patterns and trends in the data which might not have noticed before. You only need to be familiar with the basics of Python and data visualisation to work on this project. 

You can take a small dataset and create a chart or graph, depending on your project’s goals, using Python in this project. You can create many visualisations in this project, such as box plot, column chart, pie chart, and scatter plot. This is among the best hackathon project ideas for beginners as well. It would be best to create an artistic visualisation. You can take inspiration from these nine amazing data visualisation projects. 

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3. Use JavaScript to Create a Game

This is another web-development project idea where you will use your JavaScript knowledge to create a simple and enjoyable game. There are many games available on the internet that were built through HTML5 and JavaScript. You can start by creating a simple snake game where the player controls the snake and earns a point whenever the snake eats a fruit. The player loses if the snake hits the border (or an obstacle). 

On the other hand, you can create an advanced game that stands out from the competition, such as a platformer (like Mario) or a puzzle-solving game.  

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4. Build a Tool that Recognises Famous People

In this project, you will have to create a tool that uses computer vision to identify people. Facial recognition has become highly prevalent in the last few years, thanks to AI’s rising popularity. You can use it to your advantage and build a tool that recognises famous people in photos. 

You will first have to build a facial recognition model that can identify faces in pictures. After that, you will have to train this model to identify specific people in images using a dataset of said people’s photos. After that, you can test it out and see how well it performs. This project will test your abilities to apply your knowledge of AI and machine learning. 

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5. A Tool that Generates Weather Reports

Here, you’ll be creating a tool that generates weather reports for the user. It is among the best hackathon projects for beginners as the prerequisites for this project are pretty simple. You only need to be familiar with advanced web-development and APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) to work on this project.

First, you’ll have to create a website with an easy-to-use interface. Then, you’ll have to use a weather API that will provide you with the required weather information. Your website would receive the API data and show the same in a proper and easy to understand manner.

You can use OpenWeatherMap API, Weatherbit API, or AccuWeather API for this project. 

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6. Face Recognition Tool For CCTVs

If you want to build a solution to enhance the general public’s security, you should work on this project. Here, you will create a face recognition solution for CCTVs. The aim is to build a tool that can identify faces in a video and access the government database to recognise the culprit.

Such a solution can speed up the process of finding criminals and people of interest highly efficient. 

You can use Python to build a face recognition solution for videos, and for its data source, you can have a public criminal database. This way, if the video has the face of a criminal or wanted person in it, it would immediately identify them and alert the local authorities about the same. 

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7. Build a Chatbot

This is among the best hackathon project ideas for beginners in AI. Chatbots have become quite popular in recent years. They are bots that interact with users through a text or text-to-speech conversation. Chatbots enhance the user experience by answering the user’s questions as a human does. 

To create a chatbot, you will need to be familiar with Python, AI, and NLP (Natural Language Processing). The chatbot should be able to identify the message a user has sent to it and respond accordingly. A chatbot that can respond to multiple messages is undoubtedly an impressive tool and will help you stand out in the hackathon. 

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8. Smart Assistant For Offices

Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant are some of the most popular intelligent assistants currently. Smart assistants are IoT and AI-based solutions that make it easier to perform small tasks such as ordering something online or doing a Google search. 

You can take inspiration from the prevalent smart assistants and create one for offices. A smart assistant capable of handling an office’s menial tasks such as finding a document or scheduling a meeting can be quite revolutionary. 

You should start with building a small smart assistant that can identify commands and respond appropriately. Once you have a properly functioning smart assistant, you can add more functionalities and enhance its capabilities.  

9. Automation in Hazardous Jobs

According to an analysis by Global Diseases Burden, India recorded 1.6 million fires and more than 27,000 fire-related in 2017. This means that every fifth fire-related death in the world takes place in India. 

A prominent reason behind such a high number of fire-related deaths is the lack of adequate firemen and fire stations in India. It’s a dangerous job, and a fireman puts his life at risk every time he rescues someone. 

You can propose a solution for tackling this issue through this project. Here, you can create an automated robot that can manoeuvre in tight spaces and chart out a path quickly. You will have to use deep learning to help the robot learn and adapt to various situations.

10.  Autonomous Robot for Fetching Things

Imagine you’re sitting on the couch with your partner and watching a movie. Then you realise you want to drink some water, but there isn’t any around, so now you’ll have to get up from the couch, go to the fridge, and bring the water bottle while keeping the movie paused all the while (considering it’s on a streaming platform).

Now imagine if you had a robot that can fetch you the water bottle from the fridge. It will make life much easier, wouldn’t it? 

This is an IoT-based project, and you’ll have to create a robot that can identify commands and perform the required actions. The robot would need to use natural language processing, artificial intelligence, and deep learning to function effectively. However, it’s certainly one of the most impressive hackathon projects we have covered so far. 

11.  Safe Data Management Solution For Hospitals

Hospitals and large medical institutions use and produce a lot of data. From transactional records to patients’ medical records, their data requirements are always high. You can build a data management and processing solution that allows them to store and manage data efficiently without worrying about data breaches.

You can create a deep neural network that helps the hospital with data storage and keeps the data safe from hackers and malicious elements. Secure data management is crucial for medical institutions because any data breach would put the facility at risk and all patients at risk. 

How To Pick The Best Hackathon Project Ideas

The first step is to identify the issues you are facing in your neighborhood, nation, state, and the world, then use technology to execute solutions. The questions that follow will help you pick your hackathon project ideas properly and win the competition.

• What kind of social impact will our hackathon project have? 
• Is the proposed concept feasible in all potential settings? 
• Can we find the appropriate personnel to carry out the project? 
• Will the finished product be used by people all over the world and eventually enable them to perform the required work without it? 

Events Your Hackathon Must Have!

Make sure your hackathon has included all of these events.

• Brainstorming Session: A specific space where people can contemplate and share ideas during a brainstorming session is essential. Make sure to have whiteboards, sticky notes, markers, and other aids available to make the process easier.
• Pitch Session: Participants will give their ideas to the judges during this time. Use an event app to assist with scoring and assessment to make the process as easy as possible.
• Honor Session: The award ceremony is a significant component of the hackathon and deserves to be honored with style. Hire a host who can acknowledge and cheer on everyone who took part, even those who didn’t win.

Virtual Hackathon: How To Organize It?

Virtual hackathons are a fantastic method to attract participants from all locations and backgrounds. People from all around the world are welcome to participate because the site is no longer a bar. 

Does this imply that the teams will have more originality, innovation, and young talent? Yes! After deciding on a topic or objective, you’ll need a venue to host the virtual event. 

A single resource hub, text-based chatting, video conferencing, and other essential functions should all be available on one platform. The platform must be capable of supporting a large audience without experiencing any technological difficulties. 

It is preferable to have the right tools and a solid platform for a successful virtual hackathon. The main objective is to get as many people to attend your event as you can, therefore, promote it as much as you can. 

And lastly, explain to the participants the rules of conduct for the virtual event and the procedures they must follow. 

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Final Thoughts

We hope that you liked our collection of hackathon project ideas. You should choose a project idea according to your grasp of a subject and understanding of an issue. 

However, be sure to do your homework – before you start working on a project, conduct thorough research on its subject matter. 

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