12,000 Readers After The Hackmamba Jamstack Content Hackathon

The Hackmamba hackathon was born out of the idea to help aspiring technical content writers get started. Also, having conducted traditional hackathons in the past, we figured there has to be a better way to preserve the outcomes of a hackathon. Technical content reaches a broader audience rather than having the built products turn into 'just another project' in the side-project planet. It serves as a store of knowledge on the web. This pilot hackathon kicked off with 191 applicants, and having run for 8 weeks, has come to an end with exciting results.

In the hackathon, we had approximately 105 individuals attend workshops hosted by prolific developer advocates from Auth0 and Cloudinary. Over 80 participants were in attendance. The topics taught in the workshop as uploaded on youtube are:

• Getting Started with Efficient Technical Writing by William Imoh
• Managing Media in Jamstack Apps using Cloudinary by Tessa Mero
• Tips for Writing Great Technical Articles by Jessica Temporal
• Authenticating React Apps with Auth0 by Tyler Clark

The workshops were aimed at equipping the participants with adequate knowledge to get started with technical writing and build better Jamstack products using Auth0 and Cloudinary.

Following the completion of the workshops, the hackathon kicked off properly, with a requirement to the participants. We required them to build any jamstack product or feature using Auth0 for authentication and Cloudinary to manage media, then write a technical tutorial on how it was done. Participants are also free to add any other Jamstack tools and deploy the product on any platform of their choice.

Backed by the impressive knowledge acquired from the workshops, the hackathon participants built Jamstack features, products and wrote about them.

The Outcomes

A total of 23 articles were created during the hackathon, with 19 published on Dev.to. 3 participants emerged top of the hackathon. Congrats to Morayo in first place, Giridhar in second and Chibuzo in third. All the content created was reviewed by editors at Hackmamba, and feedback was provided to the participant. This ensures the content created follows product content outcomes and guidelines set at Hackmamba.

As promised at the start of the hackathon, all participants who published content meeting the stated requirements were compensated. We believe good work should be rewarded, whether it's for a first post or the 100th. As at the time of writing, the content published had reached over 12,000 individual readers. Also, the social media reach of the hashtags #hackjamstack and #hackjamstackcontent crossed 100,000 impressions. While this is seen as a great success, we have over 50% of the hackathon content created, expressing heartfelt gratitude for the opportunity to learn, create content, and get rewarded for it.

We'll use this opportunity to thank everyone that participated and supported this initiative, the workshop hosts, sponsors, hackathon facilitators, and ultimately, the participants.

What next?

As Hackmamba is on a mission to help software companies create better technical content, we'll continue to teach and support aspiring technical writers. We'll do this through subsequent better versions of the Hackmamba content hackathon.

While you're at it, if you're looking to create or augment technical content created by your developer relations team, through efficient content strategy and delivery, send an email to william@hackmamba.io.

Also, manage security in your application with Auth0 and handle media effectively with Cloudinary.

Here's to becoming better.