This talk is published as part of the 2025 Global LLM Hackathon for Applications in Chemistry and Materials Science on YouTube. Check it out here. We start with a short introduction about myself and my path to chemistry and computer science while participating in hackathons!
Kudos to my GlossaGen teammates Dieter Plessers and Philippe Schwaller. Our team won the second overall prize and Knowledge Graph Prize in the 2024 Global Hackathon on LLMs in Chemistry and Materials Science. You can read more about our project and many other exciting submissions in the preprint and publication. A big thank you to the organizers, volunteers and sponsors who made this event possible!
TL;DR
I want you to take three messages away from this post:
- Hackathons are a wonderful opportunity to dive into a new, exciting topic and work with new, exciting people.
- To “succeed,” pursue an idea you’re passionate/curious about and convey this passion in your pitch. I recommend humor and live demos (vide infra).
- The barrier to entry is lower than ever for coding competitions like these. Use this guide to get started with your own project straightaway.
Why hackathons matter to scientists
You might wonder, “Why should I, as a chemist/natural scientist/non-computer-scientist, take part in such a time-consuming event?” Hackathons are an excellent way to dive into the world of coding, especially for LLMs, especially for chemists transitioning into the field. Yes, they can be intimidating at first. But they provide a unique platform to:
- Generate ideas collaboratively and “on the spot”
- Develop concepts in an incredibly short amount of time
- Apply your scientific problem-solving skills in a new context
- Connect with like-minded individuals from diverse backgrounds. Quite literally, you get to know postdocs in theoretical physics, software engineers, designers. Each person is talented and can contribute uniquely in their own way!
Contrary to popular belief, hackathons are not “two days of grind, non-stop ☕, super-stressful, probably leading to nothing.” They are a sprint, yes, but an exciting and collaborative one.
The hierarchy of a successful hackathon
Your team > your idea > your pitch > your demo > your implementation.
Your team
Teamwork makes the dreamwork. Find your people; I highly recommend working with someone you do not know yet! From my experience, an ideal team size is 3-4 people, where you typically have one to two people coding the program (front- and backend), one domain expert to develop the idea, one “jack of all trades” who, most importantly, designs the final presentation from the start.
Communication is key: Be open, frequent, and clear. It’s fantastic to have constructive discussions, disagree, find new avenues to explore, and fail fast. Be assertive with your ideas, but remain open to others’! Free temporary Slack workspaces or Discord channels are perfect for this (even if you sit next to each other, written documentation is invaluable).
Establish a clear modus operandi—be specific about who does what. Usually, a “lead” naturally emerges who keeps everything together, watches the timeline, and assigns tasks when they overflow. Of course, everyone must stay respectful, friendly and flexible for the project to succeed.
Your pitch
The pitch is so, so, so important, and ✨your time to shine✨. You need to convey your excitement about the idea and implementation convincingly. My favorite strategy is humor. Take our 2024 submission pitch, for instance:
We started with a catchy tag line (Your Manuscript’s Glossary, Instantly Created), a humorous intro (“finish the 80-page-review by this weekend”), a concrete usecase, a crisp live demo, (and somewhat of an acknowledgement that you did not solve “the entirety of chemistry” in 48 hours, which is particularly important for the chemists in the audience).
Take your time with polishing the presentation and conveying your important “selling points” in the matter of a few minutes, sometimes even 90 seconds. it needs to be short, crisp, on point, exciting.
In other words, give your presentation an extra “oomph” which makes people remember you, and understand why you are tackling an important problem with a nice methodological contribution.
The demo
Live demos are the Non Plus Ultra. I like to use Gradio for creating customizable user interfaces and QuickTime Player on Mac to record screen captures. Find a quiet place and make time to re-record the demo a couple of times if needed (it will be needed). You can easily run your first demo in the template repository by running uv run main.py and opening http://localhost:7860 in your browser!
The code
It is a hackathon, though, so let’s address software engineering.
Whether you’re a first-time programmer or seasoned developer, set up your development environment (“IDE”) in advance. I like using Python (in particular, uv) in VSCode or Cursor and Gradio for user demos, all through a customized template. The day-of, get your API keys and make sure to keep them to yourself: never share them in code or push them to GitHub.
I created a template repository to make this process as simple as possible for you: use it as a template (step-by-step instructions here) and get to talk to Gemini in a chatbot interface right away!
For a live demo of the live demo, check out the video from … to … .
The timeline of a successful hackathon
Before
Set up your development environment to “hit the ground running”. Find teammates in advance if possible: on-site or remotely. Prepare your toolkit and templates.
During
Fail fast and iterate quickly on your idea. Aim to get to a proof-of-concept as soon as possible. Communicate constantly and clearly with your team. Focus on the pitch from day one, and spend a lot of time polishing it. Get enough sleep. And most importantly, we aware that the “endspurt” chaos where the live demo is recorded and, like a law of nature, and unexpected errors happen in the last hour before submission
After
Stay in touch with teammates: these connections are invaluable! While you might not (or might) build the next unicorn startup, consider how you can apply these new skills to your regular work. Build publicly.
Some departing thoughts
Remember, a hackathon is about learning, growing, and pushing your boundaries in a supportive environment. The barrier to entry for coding competitions has never been lower. The skills and connections you acquire will serve you throughout your career. Most importantly, have fun getting to know a new field and people! Enjoy the process of building.
Citation
@online{lederbauer2025,
author = {Lederbauer, Magdalena},
title = {How to Succeed in a Hackathon: A Chemist’s {POV}},
date = {2025-08-15},
url = {https://mlederbauer.com/posts/2025-08-15-llm-hackathon/},
langid = {en}
}