How AMD™ IT Scaled AI Hackathons with a Repeatable Playbook

AI hackathons are a practical way to test ideas quickly, build skills, and connect teams to real business challenges. AMD IT captured what we learned from running multiple global AI hackathons and organized it into a repeatable AI Hackathon Playbook—a set of steps and templates teams can use to plan and run their own events.

The playbook is built from hands‑on delivery of AI‑focused hackathons across multiple global locations, with hundreds of participants working on real business use cases. The guidance is written so a new organizing team can follow it end-to-end or extract the pieces they need to fit their own context.

Why We Built an AI Hackathon Playbook

As our hackathons grew to include more participants, more teams, and more regions, we started seeing the same questions and issues came up repeatedly. It was not always clear who owned what, when planning should begin, and how to communicate effectively. We built a playbook to standardize those basics so organizers can spend less time reinventing logistics and more time supporting strong project work. If you’re hosting an AI hackathon, you can use it as a proven starting point and tailor it to your environment.

What Makes the Playbook Different

The AI Hackathon Playbook shows how we run these events. It provides a simple, repeatable process and highlights decision points where teams often need to adjust—such as event length and local needs.

The playbook provides:

• End‑to‑end planning guidance covering preparation, event execution, and follow‑up.
• Reusable templates for participants, team leads, and stakeholders.
• Defined roles and responsibilities to support teams before and during the event.

Bringing these pieces together helps teams move faster and stay aligned. Organizers can work from a shared checklist, reuse the same forms and role definitions, and spend more time coaching teams and removing blockers instead of rebuilding the event mechanics.

Designed for Any Site, Any Team

One of the core principles behind the playbook is flexibility. While our flagship AI Hackathons were delivered globally, the same framework has been reused for:

• Single‑site hackathons.
• Region‑specific events.
• Smaller, focused team hackathons.

You can scale the playbook up or down based on your needs—use the full end-to-end flow for a large event or start small with a focused format and add components over time. Keeping a consistent structure also makes it easier to bring new organizers onboard, set clear expectations for participants, and build on lessons learned from one event to the next.

Enabling Innovation Beyond a Single Event

Plan for what comes after the hackathon. The event is just the start. Sharing demos, evaluating ideas, and deciding next steps are what turns projects into real outcomes and keeps people engaged.

Teams that reuse the playbook can:

• Launch an AI hackathon with clear owners, timelines, and expectations.
• Reuse a proven structure without adding unnecessary processes.
• Keep teams focused on high-value use cases that matter to the business.

Treat the playbook as a living document: Each time it is used, capture feedback from organizers and participants, update the checklists and templates, and keep a log of what worked and what you’ll change next time. Closing that loop makes each future event easier to run and more valuable than the one before.

Next Steps

Access the playbook here: AI Hackathon Playbook