First hakaton 2GIS
Last weekend, we organized the first open hackathon in the Novosibirsk office of 2GIS. We will not tell you how cool it was, what great projects won and that's it. We will share some tips for the organizers of such events and ask a couple of questions.
Before, we only did internal hackathons for 2GIS employees. This time they decided to make the hackathon open to everyone. Responsibility and scope at such an event increased by several times: 140 people who practically live in the office for 2 days are serious.
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Communication with participants
We used Slack as a single platform for communications. In general, he met our expectations. All the guys were in touch with each other and with us, in one place. In the general channel, we made important announcements for the participants and answered their questions. Each project had its own closed channel, where the team members first got acquainted, and then communicated. We also had a channel for team leaders and, of course, a separate chat for the organizers.
By the way, Slack integrates well with other tools. We, for example, collected membership cards in Trello and got bugs about new members in Slack.
Sleeping places
If you do hakaton for two days, be sure to do the sleeping area. When participants have a place to relax and rejuvenate, this is a big plus. Call a partner hostel, make friends with a tourist shop (let them give you sleeping bags for hire) or, at worst, just make room for the sleeping bags and ask them to take them with you. Vigorous developers - vigorous projects!
Food and coffee
We squandered and forgot about the coffee on the first night. As a result, the first night we had with a minimum amount of coffee and no cookies. In the morning everything worked as it should: three times a day we fed the guys in our canteen, and next to the working area we placed coffee machines and cookies. It is highly recommended to ensure that such events have proven catering or access to your own dining room. Three meals a day + coffee points with cookies during the day - our recipe for well-fed developers and successful projects :)
Jury
We had nine experts. Three of them are from IT, one from marketing, one from urban planning, one from the city council of deputies, one from media and business, one from entrepreneurship, one from a start-up party. Someone liked such a diverse composition of the jury - you could ask different questions and get answers from people who really look at projects differently. Someone did not like this approach. The guys did not understand why they were asked about monetization, why the experts have people from the media and marketing. Hackathon is about technology, a competition of programmers.
Hackathon theme
The only limitation in the projects that we took on the hackathon was their topic. We made hakaton pro products that make life in the city comfortable. There is an opinion that it is more interesting to set the bar not on the topic, but on tools, or on technologies.
And finally, the squeeze of feedback from participants and hackathon experts
Roma Salnikov, developer, project “Video routes” :
“From the hackathon, everyone got what he wanted himself. There were business ideas - they managed to check. There were design ambitions - they did not go unnoticed. My team wanted to try out cool technology, test their strength as engineers. When everything turned out, it was a real buzz! ”
Ekaterina Vershinina, jury member, IT director of the Electronic City :
“Participating in the hackathon as an expert is both interesting and responsible. You immerse yourself in an absolutely start-up atmosphere, start generating ideas based on the projects of the guys, try on different products for yourself - will it go or fail, will the audience and income be it or is it just a fan theme. Also, you are responsible for the correct choice of the winning project - how useful it will be to the team and whether it will give impetus to further development. Many thanks to the organizers for the magical atmosphere of freedom of creativity and expression. Being part of it is pleasant and honorable. ”
Ivan Emelyushkin, designer, project “Cycling routes of cities” :
“Such an atmosphere of liveliness, enthusiasm and desire to work, concentrated in one place I have never seen before. The organization was a bit muddled, but it fit the pace of the hackathon perfectly. Looking forward to the next event! ”
Vlad Shulyugin, developer, “Next Station” :
“The guys organized everything at the level of Western hackathons: wi-fi kept the load, it was possible to program comfortably both at the table and on the couch, there was delicious food and a quiet sleep area. Siberian teams impressed with their skills. But the most interesting for us was communication with mentors. Thanks to this, we managed to drastically simplify our application and give it a concise design. ”
“From the hackathon, everyone got what he wanted himself. There were business ideas - they managed to check. There were design ambitions - they did not go unnoticed. My team wanted to try out cool technology, test their strength as engineers. When everything turned out, it was a real buzz! ”
Ekaterina Vershinina, jury member, IT director of the Electronic City :
“Participating in the hackathon as an expert is both interesting and responsible. You immerse yourself in an absolutely start-up atmosphere, start generating ideas based on the projects of the guys, try on different products for yourself - will it go or fail, will the audience and income be it or is it just a fan theme. Also, you are responsible for the correct choice of the winning project - how useful it will be to the team and whether it will give impetus to further development. Many thanks to the organizers for the magical atmosphere of freedom of creativity and expression. Being part of it is pleasant and honorable. ”
Ivan Emelyushkin, designer, project “Cycling routes of cities” :
“Such an atmosphere of liveliness, enthusiasm and desire to work, concentrated in one place I have never seen before. The organization was a bit muddled, but it fit the pace of the hackathon perfectly. Looking forward to the next event! ”
Vlad Shulyugin, developer, “Next Station” :
“The guys organized everything at the level of Western hackathons: wi-fi kept the load, it was possible to program comfortably both at the table and on the couch, there was delicious food and a quiet sleep area. Siberian teams impressed with their skills. But the most interesting for us was communication with mentors. Thanks to this, we managed to drastically simplify our application and give it a concise design. ”
Do the sleeping area on site or send participants to sleep home?
Feed everyone on the site or let them understand?
Limit projects to technologies, themes or type of products?
Call experts from different fields or just techies?
We will be happy if in the comments you share your opinion and tell about your experience of participating in hackathons. We do not plan to stop, so your opinion is important to us. Next up is the big hackathon in Moscow!
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/278431/
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