Guest post by Karlis Skuja, co-founder of HackTribe.
A hackathon is an event where people engage in rapid and collaborative engineering over a relatively short period of time such as 24 or 48 hours. The first event labelled a hackathon was the OpenBSD Hackathon in Calgary, Canada, on June 4, 1999. Since then this event format was rapidly integrated into startup movements all around the world. Today, the hackathon is the common practice of creating ideas and innovations inside specific communities, as well as big corporations.
Due to their different backgrounds, every person can be a valuable source of innovation as we all look at the same situation differently. The hackathon is a great place for them to come together and work out the solution with different perspectives in mind. It is possible for a heart surgeon and a poet to work together and the only place for them to meet with a common goal is a hackathon.
What can we expect to happen in the future with this form of experimentation?
Rise of virtual hackathons
The recent pandemic clearly demonstrated the potential of virtual events. Until then hackathons had mostly happened at one particular spot where a crowd of professionals and people with different backgrounds levels of skills would gather to solve some challenges. Virtual hackathons provide the opportunity to make events bigger and involve people from around the world.
This means connecting different and even quite opposite experiences and cultures to create something truly amazing and inspiring. In addition, a virtual format is way more accessible to participants. Hackathons often happen at weekends so that participants can successfully manage family time with challenging themselves professionally in a team of experts and enthusiasts.
Integration of artificial intelligence
These days, nothing happens without the involvement of Artificial Intelligence (AI). And it can provide a real productivity boost during a hackathon. There are several ways AI can become a valuable member of the team. For example, it can help to process a lot of specific information and create comprehensive summaries. Of course, it can help to generate some ideas or find new perspectives of existing ones. AI can also offer a significant helping hand when it comes to design.
AI is an interesting topic itself as a result of which there is a tendency for hackathons to also be about AI and finding the right AI applications in particular industries. For example, this year organizations from three Baltic countries came together to organize the first ever “Baltic AI” hackathon. The event invited students of all levels and study programmes in the Baltic States to use the limitless possibilities of artificial intelligence to tackle real societal challenges.
More open data available
The open data trend means that data is freely available to the public in a usable format, with the goal of promoting transparency, collaboration, and innovation. Open data is provided by governments, businesses, and different organizations. The more data is available, the more opportunities there are to use it for developing new ideas and solutions.
Importance of sustainability
Sustainability is a huge topic these days. On the one hand, this is due to the understanding that the action of every person counts to save our planet. On the other, Europe has introduced quite strict regulations to urge companies to act with sustainability in mind. Creative and innovative solutions are welcomed in both cases, but especially in the second, where companies admit that ESG reporting needs some additional tools for data collection and processing. If there is a need, then there is room for a hackathon.
It is worth mentioning that communities usually gather around topics that concern societal values. And the Climathon organized by EIT Climate-KIC is a perfect example. Through the hackathon, the organization reaches a global community of climate-minded people who then collaborate to help cities decarbonise. Climathon organizers emphasize that events bring citizens together to raise awareness.
Design thinking and other methods
The purpose of different methods is to provide both the structure of thinking and the whole process of creating innovation. When people with different experiences come together, they need a framework that helps them to stay focused. For example, design thinking is considered to be an effective tool to use in hackathons. The advantage of this method is that it provides a human-centred problem-solving approach and encourages empathy, collaboration, and experimentation. It starts with the definition of the problem and usually ends with testing and validating a prototype. Hackathon organizers are encouraged to include professionals that can help the teams to apply design thinking and other methods.
Emerging technologies such as blockchain and web3
People recognize blockchain, web3 and other decentralized technologies as an opportunity to disrupt traditional business models. A hackathon is the perfect place to test new technologies and meet advanced users who can help the team to take unexpected turns while working on innovative ideas. And the technology itself provides an opportunity to organize events around them – new usage cases are always welcome and can help to move this technology further.
Mentorship and skill development
Today hackathons are more about ideas that can be turned into products or services. That’s why hackathons are packed with different experts providing mentorship and helping to develop necessary skills. Mentors are usually experts from industries so their opinion can help to significantly improve the initial idea. They are also passionate about the industry and are often willing to help even after the official event has finished. A great hackathon involves other experts who will guide the teams by asking the right questions and can help to develop useful skills such as how to prepare a powerful pitch.
Solving problems for businesses
Hackathons are becoming more popular with businesses. Enterprises develop new technologies, and through hackathons these technologies can be tested and new solutions created.
For smaller companies, this is a tool to boost creativity inside the team. Bigger companies are capable of attracting a bigger audience to solve their industry challenges. A great idea developed in a hackathon is likely to receive investment and become a working solution.
Automation and digitalization of the hackathon organization process
Only teams who have organized hackathons will know how many resources are involved in running a great event. Nowadays, a lot can be done with the help of software and it is becoming an increasingly popular trend for several reasons. Firstly, it is significantly cheaper to use software. And secondly, it eliminates the human factor as it helps to avoid mistakes or takes care of something that has been otherwise forgotten.
In recent years, automation and digitalization have transformed the hackathon experience, allowing organizers to focus more on fostering creativity than managing logistics. Platforms like Devpost and HackerEarth have been instrumental in this shift. HackTribe empowers organizers to handle every stage seamlessly in one place — from creating a program or event landing page and registration to team formation, matchmaking, mentoring planning, evaluation, feedback collection, and even issuing certificates. We can expect more players in this market in coming years for sure.
