Charlie Detar: Hackathons don't solve problems | (MIT Center for Civic Media)
Hackathons can spur creativity, can inspire a concerted amount of development effort on a focused project for a short period of time, and can increase attention to a critical issue. For people who feel disaffected and hopeless, a hackathon can rekindle a sense of creativity and possibility. But the tangible products of a hackathon (hardware, software) are rarely of adequate quality for real-world use.