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PRANJUL RATHOUR
PRANJUL RATHOUR

Posted on Originally published at pranjulrathour.scult.in

What a judges' briefing should actually cover (fifteen minutes, before the first pitch)

#hackathonjudging #paneljudge #organisers

Most scoring inconsistency between judges traces back to skipping a fifteen-minute briefing before the first pitch. It is the cheapest fix in the entire judging process.

What to actually cover

  • Walk through the rubric line by line — what does a 3 vs a 4 on 'execution' actually mean, concretely.
  • Score one sample team together, out loud, and discuss any disagreement before real scoring starts.
  • Agree on the conflict-of-interest process and the tiebreak process, so nobody improvises either mid-event.
  • Confirm logistics: how long each team gets, whether Q&A time counts against the five minutes, where scores get submitted.

Do this even for a panel of two

Judges assume calibration only matters for large panels. Two judges scoring independently without a shared reference point can disagree just as sharply as ten.

See panel judging vs solo judging.

About Pranjul Rathour

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 in front of an Integral Startup Foundation hackathon backdrop
At an Integral Startup Foundation hackathon

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

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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