What is a hackathon?

the short definition

A hackathon is a competition with a deadline. Organisers set a theme and a time limit, participants form teams, and every team spends that time turning an idea into something that runs. At the end each team demonstrates what it built, judges score the entries against published criteria, and prizes go to the strongest.

Four things make an event a hackathon rather than a workshop or a conference: it is time-boxed, work happens in teams, the output is something built during the event, and it is judged. An event missing any of the four is usually called something else on its own listing — a workshop, a bootcamp, a meetup — and this directory follows whatever the organiser called it.

what the word means

“Hackathon” is hack plus marathon. “Hack” here is the old engineering sense — a quick, clever solution to a problem — not intrusion into a system. “Marathon” describes the format: one continuous, bounded stretch of time rather than a series of sessions. Vietnamese uses the English word as it is; “hackathon là gì” is the question most people arrive here with, and this page is the answer.

how a hackathon runs

The order is close to the same everywhere:

• Kickoff — the organiser sets out the theme, the rules, the judging criteria and the deadline.
• Team formation — people either arrive as a team or form one on the spot.
• Building — the bulk of the time, usually with mentors on hand.
• Submission — work stops at a hard deadline and teams submit whatever state their project is in.
• Demos — each team presents, typically in a few minutes.
• Judging and prizes — judges score against the criteria set at kickoff and announce winners.

the kinds of hackathon run in Vietnam

The word covers events that differ a lot in who turns up, how long they run and what is at stake. Knowing which kind a listing is tells you most of what you need before registering.

• University hackathons — FPT, Bách Khoa Hà Nội, RMIT, VinUni and the Ho Chi Minh City universities run the largest and most frequent events; beginner tracks and student-only rules are the norm here.
• Corporate and bank challenges — banks, telecoms and the big platforms set a brief tied to their own business, often with a cash prize in đồng and a recruiting angle; Saigon Innovation Hub and the Hòa Lạc NIC host many.
• Government innovation events — the National Innovation Center, provincial people's committees and Jakarta-style smart-city programmes in Hà Nội and Đà Nẵng run open-data and civic briefs.
• Startup-hub weekends — Dreamplex, DNES and the coworking floors run short, free events announced late, which is why the calendar is worth checking more than once.
• Game jams — the same format producing a game instead of an app, around Global Game Jam in January and the Saigon indie scene.

The name shifts with the subject: a dataset makes it a datathon, a game makes it a game jam, an ideas-only event with no build is an ideathon. The shape is the same — a brief, a clock, teams, a demo — and this directory lists events under whatever the organiser called them.

how long they last

There is no standard length — the organiser sets it. Of the 2 hackathons listed on this site right now, 0 run inside a single day and 2 run across two or more. The longest currently listed is MLAI Hackathon, which runs 29 days (19 Sep – 17 Oct 2026).

The two shapes you will meet most often in Vietnam are the weekend build of 24 or 48 hours, which starts on a Friday evening or Saturday morning and finishes with demos on the Sunday, and the single working day, which is what most corporate challenges and community events run. Shorter events are built around a narrow brief you can finish in one sitting. Longer ones leave room for a bigger build and normally put food, sleep and mentor sessions in the schedule.

what it costs to enter

Less than people expect, and usually nothing — miễn phí is the norm here. 1 of the 2 hackathons listed on this site publishes a free ticket, and 1 has not announced one yet. Where an organiser has published a figure it is on the listing, so you can check before registering.What a ticket price does not tell you is capacity: free events at universities and coworking spaces routinely cap places and close registration early.

do you need a team

Almost always, and the organiser sets the size rather than leaving it open — it is one of the first things stated on a listing, because it decides how you show up. The limits vary more than people expect, from a pair to a room, so read the one on the event you are entering rather than assuming. If you arrive alone, most events run a team-forming session at kickoff.

in person or online

Worth checking before you plan around one. Of the 2 hackathons listed here, 0 are in-person, and 2 run entirely online. The practical question is usually which host city you can get to, which is what the sections below are for.

where they happen in Vietnam

Not evenly. This directory groups every listing into five city hubs — the five centrally governed municipalities — and each hub covers the province around it rather than the city alone: an event in Hòa Lạc is listed under Hà Nội, one in Thủ Đức or Bình Dương under Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh, one in Hội An under Đà Nẵng. Eight further cities — Huế, Nha Trang, Đà Lạt, Vinh, Hạ Long, Buôn Ma Thuột, Quy Nhơn and Vũng Tàu — are too far from any hub to be folded into one honestly, so they keep their own names in the listings instead.

The five hubs are Hà Nội, Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh, Đà Nẵng, Hải Phòng and Cần Thơ, and each page says exactly which districts and provinces it covers. The central highlands and the far north are deliberately left out of that grouping — an event in Huế, Nha Trang, Đà Lạt, Vinh or Hạ Long keeps its own city name and shows under all events.

the types you'll see listed

Hackathons are usually named for their subject or their audience. These are the filters this directory keeps, with what is on each right now:

ai hackathons

A listing appears here when the brief is artificial intelligence — agents, models, machine learning, computer vision, generative AI — either named in the title or clear from the organiser's own description. (2 listed)

game jams

A listing appears here when teams build a game inside a fixed time limit — video games or tabletop, solo or team, from a theme or a constraint handed out at the start. (0 listed)

Events are also split by format — in person, online or hybrid — and by city. You can browse every listing by city from the locations index.

who can enter

Hackathons are open to more than programmers: teams that win are usually a mix of engineering, design and someone who can present the idea clearly. Plenty of events are aimed squarely at people who don't write code, and say so in their own description — several of the ones listed here are built around no-code and AI-assisted tools, which is a fair part of why the format has stopped being a programmers-only event.

what you can win

Prizes are set per event and published on the listing. They are not always cash — mentoring, cloud credits, hardware, an incubator place and introductions are all common — and the amount varies enormously between a community jam and a sponsored event.

faq

find one to enter

This site lists every upcoming hackathon it can find in Vietnam, updated weekly. Browse all 2 upcoming events, narrow to ai hackathons or game jams, or pick a city from the locations index.

Running one? Submit your hackathon — free to list.