About us
We exist so student
hackathons don't have to
struggle.
A student-founded non-profit removing every obstacle between a great idea and a world-class hackathon — at zero cost.
Our story
It started with one
frustrated organizer.
In 2019, a UC Berkeley student was trying to run their first hackathon. They had the passion, the community, the ideas — but hit a wall when it came to funding. Cold emails went unanswered. Sponsorship decks looked amateur. The event almost didn't happen.
That experience became the blueprint for HowToHackathon. What if every student organizer had access to a team of people who'd already figured this out? What if the support was completely free?
Today we've helped raise over $2.7 million for student hackathons across the country. We've supported over 100 events and built a community of 25,000+ organizers. And it's still free.
Timeline
Five years.
One mission.
What we stand for
The principles we
won't compromise on.
Radically free.
We believe financial barriers should never stop a great hackathon. Every service, every resource, every hour we spend — free.
Student-first.
We are students, built by students, for students. Every decision we make is filtered through one question: does this help the organizer?
Relentlessly helpful.
We don't hand you a PDF and disappear. We walk alongside your team through every email, every pitch, every event-day crisis.
Proof over promise.
$2.7M raised isn't a marketing figure — it's the sum of hundreds of individual wins we helped create, one hackathon at a time.