How to Get Into a Hackathon and What Teams Should Do: A Practical Guide from inVision U Students

From April 18 to 25, a hackathon organized by AIESEC Kazakhstan took place — and two inVision U teams were among those who made it through the selection. One worked on the Mars case, the other on Air Astana.The tasks were real business problems, and our students were ready for them.Because this wasn't their first hackathon — and there are already wins in the record.

The Mars Case: Marketing & Consumer Behavior Analytics

The team had to:

•      Analyze the behavior and preferences of Gen Z in Kazakhstan

•      Develop a one-year marketing strategy for SNICKERS®

•      Adapt the brand to the local market taking into account cultural context

•      Propose specific promotion channels and performance metrics

The Air Astana Case: Data & ESG Strategy Plan

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The task was at the intersection of analytics, sustainable development, and business strategy. The team had to:

•      Conduct a market and passenger behavior analysis

•      Figure out how to integrate an eco-solution into the company's business model

•      Calculate how the ESG initiative would affect the business financially and reputationally

•      Propose a launch plan with concrete steps and justification

These cases sound like assignments for a consulting agency.But inVision U students work in exactly this format from their first year —project thinking, working with data, connecting ideas to real business outcomes. These are not skills that appear on their own. They are developed through team projects, case studies, and constant practice in defending solutions.

How Does the University Prepare Students for Hackathons?

At inVision U, the path from idea to result is built in three stages — and students go through each of them during their studies, long before any competition.

Awareness. Students learn to see a problem, formulate it, and communicate it to an audience. This includes marketing, events, and working with real partners. Our lecturer Nargiz Mogaeva, for example, worked on exhibition projects for Air Astana — and passes on not theory, but real experience of how large companies think and what matters to them.

Funding. Understanding the economics of an idea — howto justify it and defend it in front of those who make financial decisions.

Implementation. Bringing an idea to a concrete product,project, or solution — with a team, on time, with results.

That is why our students feel at home at hackathons: they have already been through all three stages in their academic projects.

What Does the University Provide Beyond Knowledge?

Space. Not just classrooms — a place to think, work asa team, experiment and not be afraid to make mistakes. Students here do not sit through lectures in silence; they create, debate, try, and rebuild.

Mentorship. Mentors with Big Tech experience explain not just programming as a set of tools, but how engineers at the world's best companies think and work.

How to pitch, structure, and present. A great idea that cannot be communicated is a lost idea. inVision U teaches this separately andseriously. As one student recalls:

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Practice presentations were not only in the IT course, but in other subjects too:English, Reading, Writing and Thinking, math. In math we had case studies: we were given input data, did calculations, and presented the solution to the professor. We got a lot of feedback.

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Today the university holds separate rhetoric lectures by Vyacheslav Abramov: how to speak, how to hold the audience's attention, how to present yourself in 30 seconds. Plus there are meetings with real founders and entrepreneurs who share how to pitch projects and hold the stage.

Why Did Our Students Already Know What to Do?

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The foundation was the IT course, which gave students a real base of project thinking. As one participant shares:

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We started with the basics: what projects are, how they are created, what types of project management exist. We studied Agile, Scrum, Kanban, Waterfall. Everything had practical work. A very important topic was information analysis — OSINT:how to research correctly, how to handle incorrect data, how to build an evidence base. And separately — critical thinking, because that is the skill that lets you look at a problem from different angles.‍

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The course ended with a project defense in front of a jury.Meaning students went through a real pitch before any hackathon.

Key Steps for Hackathons from inVision U Students

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Step 1. Find Your Hackathon — Don't Apply Everywhere

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The first mistake beginners make is submitting applications to everything in the hope that luck will strike somewhere. It doesn't work. Ahackathon requires full immersion, and if the topic is foreign to you, both you and the jury will feel it.

Before applying, ask yourself three questions: Is the topic clear and interesting to me? Does our team have at least basic knowledge inthis field? Are we ready to truly commit — not just for show?

Where to find hackathons in Kazakhstan: AIESEC KZ,Astana Hub, Digital Almaty, pages of major companies on Instagram and LinkedIn,career and startup Telegram channels.

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Step 2. Read the Requirements — All of Them, to the End

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This sounds obvious, but it's exactly where most teams get eliminated. The hackathon requirements are not a formality — they're a hint:what the company is looking for, what format the result should take, how it will be evaluated, what matters to the jury.

When working on the Mars case, the requirements clearly stated: a strategy specifically for Gen Z, specifically for the Kazakh market.Teams without local context were eliminated early. In the Air Astana case, the key word was ESG — those who didn't understand what it means and why an airline needs it couldn't offer anything convincing.

Read the requirements at least twice. Write down the key requirements. Come back to them throughout the process.

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Step 3. Understand the Company Before Generating Ideas

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This is what separates a good solution from a mediocre one.Before generating ideas, spend time understanding the context. First understand what the customers want, how much their problem truly hurts — and only then move toward a solution.

When working on the Air Astana case, it was important to understand: ESG for an airline is not just 'let's be eco-friendly.' These are concrete decisions affecting operational costs, reputation, and attracting investment.

The minimum you need: study the company's website, find recent news, look at competitors, search for industry reports. One hour of this preparation changes the quality of an idea dramatically.

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Step 4. Find the Root of the Problem — Don't Stop at Symptoms

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One of the most common failures at hackathons is a team solving the wrong problem. The visible, surface-level one — but not the real one.

At the start of the course we wrote our pain points as project ideas. Then, during the learning process, I realized that the problem I found was just the surface— a consequence of another problem. The Five Whys method helped us get to the core. Then we understood the real essence of the problem and started acting.After that, real results appeared.

Use the Five Whys methodology, conduct interviews, ask the right questions. And remember: don't fall in love with your idea. That is one of the key lessons inVision U students have learned in practice.

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Step 5. Formulate Your Idea in 30 Seconds

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If you can't explain your solution in half a minute, it's either raw or overloaded. The jury listens to dozens of pitches, and the first30 seconds determine whether they'll keep listening.

Simple formula: Problem → Our solution → Why this works→ What is needed to launch.

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Step 6. Your Application Is Already a Pitch

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The application is the first thing an organizer sees. It determines whether you move forward. What a strong application needs:

•      A short, clear description of the idea — not 'we want to help grow,' but specifically what you are proposing

•      Why your team — skills and experience relevant to the task

•      A visual, diagram, or prototype immediately stands out among text-only applications

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Step 7. Allocate Your Time — Don't Waste Day One on Arguments

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Seven days seems like a long time. It's an illusion.

•      Days 1–2: research, diving into the topic, formulating the problem

•      Days 3–4: generating and filtering ideas, choosing a solution

•      Days 5–6: detailing, calculations, preparing the presentation

•      Day 7: rehearsing the defense, final edits, rest before the pitch

The main rule: by the end of day two, the team must have one clear hypothesis. If on day three you're still choosing between three ideas — you're already behind.

A useful tool: a hypothesis board — all ideas that could hypothetically solve the problem go there. Then they are tested, for example through interviews with potential users.

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Step 8. Be Ready for Surprises — Don't Panic

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Everything can change at a hackathon, even at the last moment.At IT Fest 2025, our team found out 10 minutes before the pitch that the timehad been cut by three: instead of 5 minutes — 2, instead of 3 minutes for Q&A — one. There was no panic.

We didn't panic. We started reworking the presentation, coming up with new options. We decided to drop the slides and show the project directly on the laptop, visually. Because you need to be ready for different situations and not think 'oh no, what do we do now?' — but immediately look for new approaches.

A few practical tips for emergencies:

•      Prepare project documentation in advance — you can hand it to the jury to be remembered

•      Show your solution directly on a laptop — it works better than static slides

•      Grab every opportunity to stand out, even if the plan had to change

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Step 9. Defend Your Solution — Not Your Presentation

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A pitch is not a retelling of slides. The jury asks tough questions: why this approach? How did you calculate the numbers? What if the market reacts differently?

A speaker who knows the material answers convincingly. A speaker who memorized a script gets lost. The difference is felt immediately.