Large companies are increasingly conducting external hackathons, attracting specialists and simply creative people from all over the world. The search for a solution to a new problem or a fresh look at an old problem takes place in a tense and at the same time inspiring atmosphere. In part, the spirit of innovation and creativity has become one of the reasons for the popularity of such competitions. Internal hackathons are also not lagging behind and are replacing the old, very expensive and not always justifiable team building. Double benefit: colleagues not only made friends and met in an informal setting, but also solved a problem that their hands could never reach in their daily work routine.
Moreover, some organizers try to make the hackathons themselves unusual: they make them thematic, place the participants in unusual locations or conditions, expand the geography or limit the technologies used. At the very least, this makes the hackathons stand out from the crowd of others and draws attention to them, and as a maximum, it puts the participants in even more stressful, even extreme situations, which encourages them to give their best. We will tell you about the hackathons that surprised us the most.
Train hackathon
Last year, Belarus and Latvia organized a joint hackathon: it started in Minsk and took place on the Minsk-Riga train. The idea, according to the organizers, was to explore and bring together the startup and business ecosystems of the two countries. Especially for the hackathon, an additional carriage was attached to the train, in which the participants and mentors were traveling. And in Riga on the platform they were met by the Minister of Economy of Latvia. The participants attended master classes and mentoring sessions, learned how to create a business model, identify demand and find investors. We visited the innovation cluster of the Riga University of Technology, People Work coworking spaces and Swedbank. By the way, this is not the first hackathon of this kind: a group of British railway companies and the UK Department of Transport organized a Hacktrain in 2015. One hundred and fifty people – developers, engineers, designers and entrepreneurs – took part in the train hackathon to improve the UK rail system. The train went from London to York, the competition lasted 48 hours. The prize fund was £ 25,000, and the best ideas were given the chance to present their projects to ministers and senior management of railway companies.
