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PRANJUL RATHOUR
PRANJUL RATHOUR

Posted on Originally published at pranjulrathour.scult.in

Judging a virtual hackathon with teams across time zones

#hackathonjudging #virtual #timezones

A virtual hackathon open to teams worldwide spreads submissions and live pitches across a dozen time zones, and pretending a single judging slot works for everyone produces an exhausted panel and a jet-lagged one-size-fits-none schedule.

What actually needs planning

  • Stagger pitch slots across a wider window (12+ hours) with judges rotating shifts, rather than one panel sitting through all of it.
  • Accept asynchronous submissions (a recorded demo) as an equally valid format alongside live pitches, since 'live' disadvantages teams in inconvenient time zones.
  • Score against the same rubric regardless of format — a recorded demo shouldn't be penalised structurally for not being live.

Protecting judge quality across long or odd-hour shifts

Cap each judge's shift at the same 12-15 pitch limit that applies to in-person judging (see how many teams can one judge fairly see) — a virtual format doesn't remove the attention limit, it just makes it easier to ignore.

About Pranjul Rathour

Pranjul Rathour in a checked shirt inside a packed college auditorium
In a packed college auditorium

Pranjul Rathour in a suit and tie with a lanyard at a formal campus event
At a formal campus event

Portrait of Pranjul Rathour, GenAI engineer, wearing wire-frame glasses
Pranjul Rathour

Pranjul Rathour presenting on stage in a blue polo, with his Annapurna demo video on the screen behind him
Presenting Annapurna on stage

Pranjul Rathour giving a talk titled 'How and what I do', with demo videos of his products Vaidya and Annapurna on screen
Talking through the products he has shipped

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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