Let’s make the world a better place. This was the tagline we chose for our first ever etventure hackathon. In part 1 of this series of blogs, we wrote about how the idea came about and explained what a hackathon actually is. Once all of the organizational hurdles were eventually overcome, we were finally able to make a start. In part 2, we will describe the intensive brainstorming and development sessions in the idyllic location in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the boat trips at the crack of dawn and the battle with elusive internet access.
Phase 2 – kickoff & setup
We had informed all of the hackathon participants about the topic (#letsmaketheworldabetterplace) a few days beforehand so that the team had been warned. On the Friday evening, once the house and grounds had been viewed, the rooms had been assigned and home-made pizzas had been put in the oven, the idea phase began. Each participant was to write – and draw out, if applicable – one or two ideas on a piece of paper. The idea had to be presented in such a way as to make it easily understandable, so that the others would immediately know what it was about. After this had happened, all the team members cast their votes by placing a small, round sticker on their preferred idea. During this phase, no consideration was given to feasibility, expansion possibilities or market potential.
The ten ideas that received the most votes were then presented by the people who submitted them. The ideas were presented in short, very entertaining pitches lasting 1–2 minutes. It quickly became apparent that nobody was there to mess around. The presenters pulled out all the stops for their pitches. There were laboriously designed idea sheets, and one idea actually originated from a participant’s pregnant girlfriend. The wide range of primary target groups included refugees, the environment, and etventure programmers. The presenters did everything they could to win the audience over with their ideas. Even just the fact that superb suggestions such as ‘Pirate Radio Anonymous’, Knowledge Sharing’ and the ‘Cow Emission Trade System’ didn’t make it to the final line-up demonstrates the overall high quality of the ideas.
In the end, the following five ideas were selected:
Easy Form App: Crowd service for multilingual explanation of forms and municipal paperwork
B-Day Present Support: Support with organizing personal birthday presents for colleagues
The Tracking Cube: Hardware solution for simple time tracking
Localization App: Online tool for the management of language versions for internal products
After the Head of Technology – and author of this blog – had wisely withdrawn his own suggestion (the localization app) from the competition in order to preclude collegial bias from the outset, four relatively heterogeneous teams were quickly formed. Another brief explanation of the rules was provided:
Hack responsibly
All team members should be actively involved in the development process. Everyone can contribute something.
Sharing is caring
Explain what you are doing to the rest of your team – but also to the other teams.
No borders – no divisions
Talk about things with others, especially those who have a different area of expertise.
Absorb all the magic
Take time to check out the other projects and give them feedback.
Don’t forget it’s the weekend
Have fun with all of the teams – it’s not a competition.
Once the final concerns regarding feasibility had been resolved and even the ‘Tracking Cube’ team had found a creative solution to the problem of developing a hardware prototype without having any hardware components, the teams set to work.
Phase 3 – prototyping
Shortly after 9 am, the participants came to the realization that although it was possible to carry on without much sleep, doing so without any food would be impossible. So an ample breakfast was dished up. It featured fried eggs (thanks again to the Operations Team for this!) and a wide range of bread roll fillings and spreads from a discount supermarket. After breakfast, there was a seamless transition into the second phase of development. By now, everyone was conscious of the time pressure. In the night, some time had been unnecessarily spent testing APIs (for anyone who isn’t a programmer, that’s Application Programming Interfaces) for prototype features that were later scrapped. The loss of each of these minutes was now being felt rather bitterly. In order to be able to put something presentable together despite the lost time, the teams were now turning to each other for support. Aside from a couple of slightly sarcastic remarks, this support was given freely.
For this reason, it was necessary to find alternatives. The hardware team benefited directly from abstaining from the bells and whistles of the internet. Meanwhile, the Lunch-o-Rama team happened to find a stable 3G connection beneath a linden tree in the garden so they fine tuned their project outside in the glorious sunshine. A landline connection from the 2000s was shared between the other teams, who were each allotted a strictly rationed time period.
Now for the home stretch… In the third and final instalment, we will present the results of the etventure hackathon. Watch this space!