Case 1 of 2Live participation product
Creating the hackathon's prediction and voting platform
The event plan already included teams, presentations, and a livestream. What it did not include was a way for the audience to participate. I identified that gap and proposed a prediction and voting platform that could keep spectators involved throughout the event. Once the idea was approved, I took responsibility for turning it into a working product.
- Context
- Corporate hackathon · February–April 2026
- Role
- Sole product and technical owner
- Key decision
- No-code administration instead of hard-coding event changes
- External signal
- Strong internal feedback; some participants assumed it was a purchased product
- Delivery
- 6 hoursidea to working MVP≈1 month part-time to production
- Live use
- 2,917predictions settled across 11 events1,050 voting records
- Reliability
- 0crashes or functional errors during the live eventevery prediction and voting result settled correctly
Explore the participant and administrator experience
This sanitized reconstruction preserves the product's connected participant journey and the no-code workspace used to operate it. Predictions, voting, event configuration, settlement, gifts, user management, and balance controls are interactive. The events and local data are fictional; XLSX import and prediction history views are labeled interface previews. Switch between Participant and Admin to inspect both sides of the product.
Shaping the product
I designed predictions using event-only virtual credits and team voting as one continuous participation experience rather than as separate features.
The platform also had to be operable during a fast-moving event. Instead of hard-coding event changes, I designed the administrator experience so organizers could change the live product state as the event unfolded.
From product decisions to a working system
I turned the approved concept into a testable product definition, made the product and technical decisions, and tested every iteration. Codex generated and revised the implementation; I kept refining the system until both user journeys and the underlying business logic worked as intended.
For the MVP, I prioritized speed. Before live use, I changed the data layer and added the operational controls needed to run and monitor the product reliably.
Making it production-ready
I treated reliability as part of the product scope rather than a final QA step. I defined the validation approach and managed deployment, launch readiness, monitoring, and live operation.
The audience participated—and the platform held up live
The platform became the event's only digital product for audience participation. It ran throughout the event without crashes or functional errors, and every prediction and voting result was settled correctly. Spectators used it to support teams and compete for prizes, closing the participation gap I had identified at the start.