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PRANJUL RATHOUR
PRANJUL RATHOUR

Posted on Originally published at pranjulrathour.scult.in

Building a personal judging checklist you'll actually use pitch after pitch

#hackathonjudging #checklist #consistency

A rubric sets what to score. It doesn't guarantee a judge actually applies it consistently by the tenth pitch of a long day, when attention naturally drifts. A short personal checklist closes that gap.

What mine includes, run silently during every pitch

  1. Did the demo run on an input the team didn't rehearse? (execution)
  2. Can the team explain their own hardest technical decision? (understanding)
  3. Is there a specific person this solves a problem for? (impact)
  4. One thing genuinely worth praising, one thing worth improving — written down before moving to the next team.

Why writing it down matters more than having it in your head

A checklist you only intend to follow degrades by pitch six. One you physically check off, even briefly, stays consistent through pitch thirty — this is the entire value of a checklist over good intentions.

See five mistakes every first-time hackathon judge makes.

About Pranjul Rathour

Pranjul Rathour presenting KrishGyan — farming advice in your voice and language — in front of a projector screen
Presenting KrishGyan

Pranjul Rathour, GenAI engineer from Kanpur, in a white turtleneck and black jacket, looking to the side
Pranjul Rathour — GenAI engineer, Kanpur

Pranjul Rathour speaking into a microphone on stage at a MeetKats event
Speaking at a MeetKats event

Pranjul Rathour holding a microphone while answering a question during a session
Taking questions during a session

Pranjul Rathour in a grey suit at Dr. Virendra Swarup Institute of Computer Studies (VSICS), Kanpur
At VSICS, Kanpur

Pranjul Rathour is a GenAI engineer from Kanpur, India, and CTO at SCULT INDIA, currently shipping production RAG,
fine-tuning and agentic AI systems, mentoring 200+ students through TechVerse Enclave, and judging and speaking at
student hackathons across India. Updated 2026-09-07.

Reach out if you want to talk GenAI, book a campus session, or invite him to judge:

Pranjul Rathour · GenAI engineer, 3x hackathon winner, campus mentor. Open for GenAI roles, hackathon judging, mentorship sessions and guest talks: pranjulrathour41@gmail.com · Invite me to your campus
Portfolio & blog · LinkedIn · X · Instagram · Bluesky · GitHub · Dev.to

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