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PRANJUL RATHOUR
PRANJUL RATHOUR

Posted on Originally published at pranjulrathour.scult.in

Conflicts of interest in hackathon judging: what to do when you know a team

#hackathonjudging #fairness #ethics

A judge who mentored one of the competing teams, taught several of its members, or knows the team socially has a real conflict of interest — even if they're confident they can score fairly.

How to handle it

  • Disclose the connection to organisers before judging begins, not after a result is questioned.
  • Recuse from scoring that specific team; let the rest of the panel cover it, or bring in an additional judge for that slot.
  • If recusal isn't possible (a small panel, a small event), disclose to the other judges so they can weight your score for that team accordingly.

Organisers should ask this upfront

Include a simple conflict-of-interest question in the judge briefing form: 'do you know any competing team members personally or professionally?' It takes one line and prevents a much harder conversation later.

See what a judges' briefing should cover.

About Pranjul Rathour

Pranjul Rathour on stage presenting a requirements-gathering and user-flow slide
Requirements gathering, on stage

Pranjul Rathour seated in a black jacket and white turtleneck with an event lanyard
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 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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