Origin of This Post
This article was actually written back in August, but at the time I felt there was no need to publish it, and releasing it might have caused bigger issues.
Later I thought that I still needed to point out the problems in this organization, especially since similar situations seem to be happening again.
Below is the original text from August:
Who is HackIt?
Before we start, let me briefly introduce HackIt.
HackIt is an organization that aims to promote teenage-led events and a culture of self-driven development in Taiwan. They’ve hosted Hack Club’s Scrapyard TW and the 5th Middle School Hackathon.
I was once a member of this team.
Wondering who Hack Club is? Simply put, they are a U.S.-based nonprofit that helps teenagers learn any tech-related skills on their own. You can check out Hack Club’s website.
Why I Joined HackIt
This goes back to January 2025.
At that time, Hack Club was preparing to host the global hackathon Scrapyard, handling almost all funding and resources. I saw the news and thought I’d give it a try, especially since no one in Taiwan had hosted a Hack Club hackathon before, and funding didn’t seem like a problem.
So I filled out the Hack Club organizer form. Before submitting, I noticed there was already a #scrapyard-taiwan channel on Slack.
Since someone was already there, it meant someone in Taiwan wanted to host Scrapyard. I immediately contacted that person.
His name was Xiaobo. At the time, I thought it was cool that someone in Taiwan was active on Hack Club Slack, so I joined his organization—HackIt—and became part of the organizing team.
Scrapyard TW
Time flew, and the event started to take shape. A week before the hackathon, Xiaobo suddenly dropped a huge problem:
There was no voting system to determine the final winner.
At that time, only me and one other person were handling the technical side, so the two of us had to build a complete front-end and back-end voting system in 7 days. The timeline was definitely tight.
The event was held at Sanmin High School with about 100 participants. At the start, things went smoothly—funding from Hack Club, happy participants, no coding issues.
While participants were busy hacking, me and my teammate were working on a mini hackathon of our own, trying to finish that system. We stayed up until 2–3 AM and somehow got a working version.
The system was designed to allow multi-faceted evaluation, using peer reviews. We thought it was great and happily went to sleep.
The next day, Xiaobo decided not to use our system for some reason. This happened the morning or noon of the judging day—there was no time left. In the end, the judging was done in a very rushed way, just using Google Forms. Our hard-built system ended up only recording participant activity.
In short, the system we made was never actually used, even though we weren’t fully sure what we were supposed to build in the first place.
I forget if it was exactly one week, but the time was definitely tight.
Note: Judging should have used Hack Club’s official centralized scoring system Podium, but Xiaobo wasn’t clear on that either. Basically, we built a system for nothing.
Was it Really the Organization’s Fault?
After reading this, you might think:
“Is it all Xiaobo’s fault? How can one person bring down the whole organization?”
But HackIt’s structure itself makes the whole team vulnerable.
As mentioned, HackIt was founded by Xiaobo. He wanted no leaders or members—everyone is equal.
In my view, this kind of structure either works if the team has insanely strong cohesion, or it ends up being carried forward by a few people. Unfortunately, HackIt was the latter.
In short, HackIt revolves around Xiaobo, and other members are basically executors. You’ll see why I say this later.
Middle School Hackathon Sub-Event
After Scrapyard TW, HackIt started organizing a middle school hackathon sub-event, hosted by the Taiwan Microcourse Development Association (first edition).
At the early stage, Xiaobo listed tasks, and everyone followed along. Things went fairly smoothly.
But later, Xiaobo had to travel to China for personal reasons several times, during which the organization clearly stalled. Messages went unanswered, tasks needing confirmation with the host were delayed. Tasks completed had no one to take over, leaving members idle.
Worse, the anti-cheating system Xiaobo was supposed to handle was never finished, and no one stepped up on-site.
The event was still completed, but this was extremely irresponsible and only possible because remaining members picked up the slack.
I had already left HackIt by then, thinking it no longer concerned me, but on the day of the event, I was called to help with technical support. My feelings were complicated—I had to help, but it confirmed that leaving was the right choice.
HackIt keeps emphasizing a flat organization with no leadership—everyone is equal.
But in practice, when fast decisions or integration are needed, it often gets stuck in “who decides?” situations. Tasks halfway through have no clear direction and often end unresolved.
Information flow became messier. Key details like event theme, format, location, and subsidies were unclear from the start. During preparation, I couldn’t even understand some details and had to guess the structure myself.
From Scrapyard TW to the middle school hackathon, I saw that while HackIt’s mission to encourage teen-led projects is great, its lack of clear roles and communication turns ideals into chaos and fatigue.
Eventually, I left and decided not to return until the problems were fixed.
HackIt Needs Internal Change
I know this post might make some people uncomfortable, especially those who participated in or are still part of HackIt.
But I’m not writing to blame anyone; I want to record what I observed. HackIt’s vision is great and attracts young people, but whether many will stay committed is uncertain.
I believe that if the organization is willing to rethink its structure—whether roles and responsibilities, decision-making processes, or member turnover—it could still host many exciting events.
But someone has to genuinely want to make changes.
History Repeats
This was added before publishing, not part of the August draft.
Honestly, I’ve been watching HackIt’s Discord server. I can see that many joined Hack Club Daydream because of HackIt’s announcements and perks.
But after the event, from a few questions about reimbursements to continuous complaints and grievances…
As one member said, hosting a hackathon for high schoolers doesn’t mean things can be sloppy, nor can promised items be delayed.
HackIt, please fix the current Daydream issues before thinking about the next step.
As a former member, I know your dreams are big, but the effort behind those dreams still needs to be in place.
If you want to discuss, don’t DM me—please email me@wolf-yuan.dev.