Hackathon

A healthcare hackathon is a time-boxed event where teams of developers, clinicians, designers and students build prototypes that address a problem in medicine, public health or health system operations. Most run over a weekend, end in a demo, and are judged on how well a team understood the clinical problem as much as on the code.

A cybersecurity hackathon is a time-boxed event where teams build security tools, attack and defend practice systems, or solve security puzzles under a deadline. Some run as capture the flag (CTF) competitions, where players find hidden strings called flags inside deliberately vulnerable challenges. Others work like product hackathons: teams build a defensive tool, a detection rule set or a privacy feature, then demo it to judges.

Hack for Humanity is a name several organizations use for hackathons that point software at a social problem: human rights, public health, the environment or civic services. The name looks like one event, but it is really a family of events. Each one has its own host, its own theme and its own rules. In this guide we explain how these social good hackathons are built, what makes them different from a product or startup hackathon, and what developers, sponsors and donors in Philadelphia should know before they take part in one or fund one.

Technical.ly published a guest post from Tony Siu and Jacob Gold on why Philadelphia needs more hackathons.

Our Philly Tech Week Innovation Hackathon 2025 was an incredible success! Over three days, developers, designers, and entrepreneurs came together to build innovative solutions and push the boundaries of technology.

Event Highlights

The hackathon brought together Philadelphia’s brightest tech minds to collaborate on cutting-edge projects. With tracks focused on AI, generative gaming systems, and startup-oriented solutions, participants had the opportunity to work on truly innovative ideas.