Hackathons as engines of innovation: A review essay

This review examines Maciej Rys’s book Sparks for Innovation: Why Hackathons Work and How to Organize One (Columbia University Press, 2025), an interdisciplinary exploration of how hackathons have evolved from grassroots programming events into institutionalized tools of innovation, education, and civic engagement. The book’s ambition lies in bridging academic theory with practitioner insight, combining conceptual analysis, ethnographic observation, and practical frameworks. It situates hackathons within broader innovation theory, linking them to Schumpeterian creative destruction, open innovation, and learning-by-doing. Rys’s hybrid perspective as both researcher and organizer enables a reflexive treatment of hackathons as ‘organized creativity’ – spaces where structure and improvisation co-exist. While the book’s inclusiveness sometimes results in conceptual dispersion, its interdisciplinary synthesis remains a notable strength. The review argues that Sparks for Innovation is essential reading for scholars, practitioners, and policymakers seeking to understand the evolving infrastructure of innovation and collaboration. It also suggests that Rys’s approach invites a reflexive application: the adaptation of hackathon logic to academic research contexts as catalysts for collective knowledge creation.