It might work in practice, but it really does not seem to meet the spirit to me. It’s definitely not true to just say “being a judge in a hackathon is one of the criterion” directly.
Actual regulation is:
Evidence of the alien's participation on a panel, or individually, as a judge of the work of others in the same or in an allied field of specialization to that for which classification is sought;[1]
is one of eight criterion (of which meeting three is required).
Examples given by USCIS[2] are:
Examples of relevant evidence may include, but are not limited to:
Reviewer of abstracts or papers submitted for presentation at scholarly conferences in the respective field;
Peer reviewer for scholarly publications;
Member of doctoral dissertation committees; and
Peer reviewer for government research funding programs.
Which seems to indicate rather more prestige than “judging a hackathon” is the intent of the regulation.
Ah now it makes sense why some of my colleagues were judging hackathons like crazy. TBH the number of O-1s being handed out is a joke. People 2 years out of college are getting O-1s for being able to call chatgpt APIs. I mean given the number of reviews I do on a regular basis for academic journals I guess I would qualify.
rofl I didnt know this was a thing, why are people so intent on gaming the system? I was judging thing in person and even during covid I did it via Discord for some events (Discord hackathons were a different culture of their own and were great) even the physical ones I did had certain traditions depending on which universities you were judging at, I do peer reviews for the research lab that I help out with sometimes so maybe that counts, but the thing is I am just doing all this because I think its fun to do. Knowing that other people have potential nefarious reasons or trying to game things or even "cheat" the system was like one of the reasons why I quit Pokemon Go initially or certain games that put everyone on the same leaderboard.
wait what I didnt know this I mentored and judged at various hackathons in the USA, do people really care about what type of visa they get? Is this a thing in 2025?
Actual regulation is:
Evidence of the alien's participation on a panel, or individually, as a judge of the work of others in the same or in an allied field of specialization to that for which classification is sought;[1]
is one of eight criterion (of which meeting three is required).
Examples given by USCIS[2] are:
Examples of relevant evidence may include, but are not limited to:
Reviewer of abstracts or papers submitted for presentation at scholarly conferences in the respective field;
Peer reviewer for scholarly publications;
Member of doctoral dissertation committees; and
Peer reviewer for government research funding programs.
Which seems to indicate rather more prestige than “judging a hackathon” is the intent of the regulation.
[1]: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-8/chapter-I/subchapter-B/...
[2]: https://www.uscis.gov/policy-manual/volume-2-part-m-chapter-...