Another point on judging criteria is that it varies widely based on who your judges are too. Those categories are pretty broad with plenty of room for interpre

Another point on judging criteria is that it varies widely based on who your judges are too. Those categories are pretty broad with plenty of room for interpretation intentionally. If the judging panel is less technical, you'll have to sell your idea differently. I've seen cool tech hackathon projects fail because of bad presentations, either because they're ineffective or they just didn't practice. It's kind of less than ideal that you're judged for the whole weekend based on how well you can sell in a 2-minute pitch, but then again it's not all that different from the real startup world.