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PRANJUL RATHOUR
PRANJUL RATHOUR

Posted on Originally published at pranjulrathour.scult.in

Hackathon sponsors and judging: staying neutral when a sponsor's tech is on the table

#hackathonjudging #sponsors #fairness

A sponsor-funded prize track ('best use of X API') puts a judge in a position where the sponsor has a stake in the outcome — sometimes the sponsor's own representative is on the judging panel. Keeping this fair takes explicit structure, not just good intentions.

How to keep it clean

  • Separate sponsor-track judging from the main prize judging entirely, with different judges where possible.
  • If a sponsor representative judges their own track, pair them with at least one independent judge who has no stake in the outcome.
  • Publish the sponsor-track criteria (genuine, meaningful use of the technology, not just any usage) so entrants know what's actually being scored.

Why this matters for the event's credibility

A hackathon where sponsor tracks feel like a formality that always goes to whoever used the sponsor's product most, regardless of quality, teaches participants that hackathon judging is arbitrary — which undermines every other prize's credibility too.

See conflicts of interest in hackathon judging.

About Pranjul Rathour

Pranjul Rathour in a shirt and tie holding a microphone in front of a career-opportunities slide
A career session for students

Pranjul Rathour presenting with a microphone in front of a slide reading 'Now what's the conclusion?'
Presenting to a room

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 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 2026-09-11.

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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