Background

The room was tidy and amid the hustle and bustle, three professional looking person walked up to us. The atmosphere shifted to one of seriousness as a bell rang, signalling that it was our team’s turn to present. I let out a big sigh and feeling all the air molecules travelling to my diaphragm and back again.

Well fast forward 4 years, a week ago the planned published date, I received a call - it was an invitation to judge Ideas for hackathon. Talking about IdeaX, it’s a hackathon organized by my college. Amid the blooming room of the pre-teej daar program organized in my home felt a bit anxious questioning whether I got it ? As time stood still, I thought for a while and accepted the invitation.

The circular irony

Don’t worry about winning or losing it’s all about experiences

During hackathon, organizers, mentors, and other people were reassuring to calm my anxieties and help participants like me enjoy the event. At that time, I was at the receiving end of those comforting words. In a previous iteration, I worked as a mentor for IdeaX, and it was fun to give advices, quotes, motivate and steering participants towards their goal. I loved easing participants anxiety, helped solved their technical problem, improve their presentation and body language.

Where is the irony ? Why is it circular ?

Now, I might be the reason people feel bad. Over the past four years, I moved from guy healed by kind words to the one responsible for killing the vibe for many participants. My judgement could bring happiness for some or be the reason other feels blue.

Dawn of anticipation

Arriving with my two friends and getting dropped off at Kalanki chowk, finding for the venue, registering and locating team’s spot was a real challenge. But hey, I got a T-shirt after that. “The free food is the sole reason you came here, right ?” was pretty common amongst within our team. After orientation was completed, implementing block chain in Python mathematically from scratch was on my part. As we found our seat, we took my DSLR and snapped some photos on rooftop.

Bringing DSLR built memory but it was a stupid move. Why ? Will explain it later on. Pinky promise 🤞

Well I was working as a part of my full time job. I got the another call about the virtual meeting where everything will take place and judging process would work. After participating in 7 hackathons (thala for a reason), I now find my right behind the virtual curtain. I had my work log entry for it setup and carried on with my day.

Being a virtual judge felt a bit like just another task in the my day

The anxiety

With great power comes great responsibility

Certainly, my responsibility was to ask right questions and give participants tips here and there. Evaluating a participant without fully understanding their presentation is a clear sign of an inadequate judge. Will I be an inadequate judge? Will my internet connection ( ahem, Worldlink) even support me ? A few uncertainties started to pop up. I asked organizers to send me a copy of recording just in case any of the uncertainties arises. Looking back, its was a good move.

But, was the move really a good one ? Our team was the only one working on blockchain theme. Don’t you know blockchain is illegal in Nepal? Some people questioned. “Ohh, Matrix (🤣 Andrew Tate pun here), do you want us behind bars . 2nd round of self doubt started popping. Was our idea just too unique? Were we unintentionally challenging the law ? Questions like these kept coming up. And being the fools we are, we decided that we didn’t want the prize. Instead, we would give our sweat and blood and not worry about the reward.

The Synchronized Choreographers

Three professional-looking individuals from respected fields within Nepal’s government came down and stood right ahead to us. The setup felt a bit like Arjun looking up to Lord Krishna in Mahabharata except here Krishna could cut your marking if you fumbled. That was me lost in my thoughts. Thankfully, our team’s plot armour pretty thick and somehow presentation went smoothly . Two of the three judges that entered room lighten up, satisfied and somewhat impressed from our presentation. Multiple reharshals paid off. The switching of roles during the presentation felt natural. The message and the flow of presentation was in sync with the time constraint. Twice the bell rang sharp, our turn was over.

Jokes to my technical friends, I uploaded whole .venv folder too in GitHub using drag and drop UI for that hackathon event 🤡

The first team came, presented their idea, followed by the second team, and so on. I was focused on understanding what each of their idea addressed, their implementation, and other details. It was a fun event. I enjoyed asking tough question and asked posed few myself too. However I was fairly generous in giving making for their presentation.

Aftermath

The first hackathon was a great experience and we also won the “Out of the Box Thinking” award for being the sole blockchain team. After not sleeping for more than 36 hours, exhaustion was pulling me down. As I dragged myself onto the sit of a random bus, I begged an unknown aunty to wake me up around my stop. I don’t have distinct memory of what happened next. The only thing I remember is the hangover no-sleep hangover, which stuck with me for 3-4 days.

I’m writing this article just a day after my judging event concluded. I’ll be updating my LinkedIn with various events that follow, so feel free to connect with me there.