Thursday morning, the sun is out, we are ready. We are eager to spark our ambition to complete the day effectively. Three teams formed over the last week, wait for the initial hackathon planner to put his white warm cup with the blue logo down and introduce the I. Onedot Summer Hackathon in Schlieren, Switzerland. Between the croissants, coffee, and fruits, the conversation in the room gets silent after we hear “Hello Everyone”.It is a simple setup. Start with a plain prototype, think about who will use your product and what features your users will expect. Describe all functions as accurately as possible. Bring to life your burning idea, with a target to be done in nine hours and have fun while doing it.
The I. Onedot Summer Hackathon agenda:09:00 - Kick off: Meet with your team and start coding.12:00 - Lunch together: Onedot invites to lunch.17:00 - Closing: Presentation of the projects.Freely formed new teams swarmed to rooms, to discuss their topic and try to complete a running demo, a viable product or a presentation. It is about collaboration, experimentation, and fun. Occupying different rooms, people started to chart their schemes on the perspex wall. Team members visualized the issue, drew a path to the solution and accordingly took ownership.
In a short period of time, we articulated three strong topics to make the day count. The goal is to build teams and work on a fresh project in a real-life setting. You learn to work with people from various departments, with diverse skill sets and new tools. A hackathon is an exercise in creative collective problem-solving. A friendly coding competition where programmers, developers, marketers come together to build and design something cool.Onedot teammates started to synthesize ideas, build the proof of concepts and undertook the shortlisted ideas for development in order to implement innovation. It is a warm day, but we do not really feel it. We are creating something exciting.
It all started with an announcement that came two weeks ago, with a request to organize a Onedot hackathon. We needed good ideas to kick things off. The theme of the event was set, all team members were asked to join and create new team constellations. Within a week the structure of our hackathon was completely shaped. Everyone was onboard.
Put in a situation where you work intensely with people from different projects, for many consecutive hours in a short period of time, makes a situation pretty intense. Reaching towards the same goal we create stronger bonds and learn from each other’s strengths. Problem-solving environments encourage the development of new ideas. The fact that we are restricted with time increases adrenaline and makes it much more productive. Still, we had time for a Onedot sponsored lunch.
The 3 projects that finished could not have been more incredible. Teams absolutely used the opportunity to explore the limits of what is possible in nine hours. Finding issues in their own spaces and exploring solutions to fix them.Here is a look at our I. Onedot Summer Hackathon projects:
Data Profiling UI: Create an Internal Web App to help to profile. Upload files and run pre-defined recipes. Presented result: Topic explanation and a running profiling script demonstration.
Customer Self-Service Buying: Customer is able to set up a complete subscription without assistance. Presented result: Topic presentation and a functioning website demonstration.
External Instruction: Engine can use instructions from outside (lambda function). Presented result: Topic presentation and a running engine demonstration.
The themes had a well-structured approach, clearly defined vision and a satisfying target outcome, which makes the I. Onedot Summer Hackathon a success. Teamwork sparked our grand ambitions and let us complete the tasks within the timeline. The hackathon turned out to be an excellent opportunity to engage with others who care about the issues that everyone at Onedot really cares about: helping each other, completing each other and solving issues through good communication.
