DEV Community

Cover image for What a hackathon judge should include in a post-event report to organisers
PRANJUL RATHOUR
PRANJUL RATHOUR

Posted on Originally published at pranjulrathour.scult.in

What a hackathon judge should include in a post-event report to organisers

#hackathonjudging #feedback #organisers

Most judges submit scores and leave. A short post-event report back to organisers — separate from the per-team feedback — is one of the most useful and least common things a judge can offer.

What to include

  • Where the rubric felt ambiguous or produced inconsistent scores across the panel, so it can be tightened next time.
  • Any logistics friction — scheduling, room setup, briefing gaps — from the judge's side of the table.
  • One or two standout teams worth following up with beyond the prize, if any showed unusual promise.

Why organisers value this

Organisers rarely get structured feedback on their own process, only on the event's atmosphere. A judge who reports back on the mechanics is doing genuinely rare, valuable work — and it's part of why that judge gets invited back.

See what a judges' briefing should cover for the input side of this same feedback loop.

About Pranjul Rathour

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 in a black t-shirt holding a microphone in front of a chequered wall
On the mic

Pranjul Rathour pitching with a microphone in front of a projector slide at CSJMU, Kanpur
Pitching at CSJMU, Kanpur

Pranjul Rathour speaking from the podium at VSICS, Kanpur
At the VSICS podium, Kanpur

Pranjul Rathour holding a trophy and a certificate of merit after a win
Trophy and certificate after a win

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

Top comments (0)