Promptathon
A hackathon for prompts. Small teams pick a real work challenge and spend a few hours writing, testing and improving prompts for a generative AI tool to solve it, with roaming helpers on hand. Each team then shows what it tried, what worked and what did not. It is a peer-learning format: people learn AI by using it on their own problems together.
Use to build practical AI skills across an organisation, when one-way training has not changed how people work.
Solves: People attend AI webinars and still do not use the tools on their actual work, because they never tried with a real problem and help nearby.
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Step 1: Before the event, collect 6-15 real challenges and set up one board area per challenge.
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Step 2: Welcome, schedule and rules: what is expected, which tools are allowed, what is shared (15 min).
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Step 3: Short introduction to prompting for newcomers, with a live demo (20-30 min).
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Step 4: Present the challenges; people form teams of 3-5 around one each (15 min).
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Step 5: Team work: write, test and refine prompts, recording versions and outputs on the board. Helpers circulate (90-240 min with breaks).
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Step 6: Showcase: each team presents the problem, what they tried, what worked, what did not, what next (5 min per team).
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Step 7: Debrief and commitments: each person names one prompt they will use at work next week (15 min).
- Use real, current work problems. Invented challenges produce prompts nobody reuses.
- Mix experience levels in each team so newcomers learn from practised users.
- Agree data rules before the start: what may and may not be pasted into the AI tool.
- Async promptathon: post challenges in a team channel and collect prompts and results over a week, with one live showcase.