what is a hackhaton?

in companies that focus on conquering and remaining in a prominent place in the market, the search for innovation is a constant challenge. as a condition of achieving this objective, it is necessary to create, through discussions, research and collaborative work, new ways to encourage the development of innovative solutions. and this is where the hackhathon is found.

hackathon is a competitive event where participants are divided into multidisciplinary teams working around an established challenge, with the aim of developing innovative solutions.

the dynamic, which emerged in the 90s, was born among software developers and owes its name to the combination of two words: hack (to program) and marathon (marathon). Today, companies from a wide range of fields hold hackathons to encourage creative problem solving, drive innovation in products and services, and build brand recognition.

despite being competitive, the experience has a playful character and stimulates the creativity of teams of collaborators in a challenging and fun way while allowing to approach a problem from different angles and perspectives. with a predetermined duration, rules and location, the hackathon allows you to focus on a specific challenge, giving rise to several proposals that can be implemented in a short space of time.

in addition to being an excellent way to produce innovative and collaborative solutions, it is also a great occasion to analyze the potential of team members, detecting their strengths and opportunities for improvement. in this sense, there are numerous organizations that conduct internal hackathons – which, in addition to producing new concepts, prototypes and ideas, also increase employee engagement, promoting a collaborative work environment.

hackathons can also involve people outside the company and, on some occasions, even function as a recruitment resource, since during their dynamics it allows the identification of new talent and qualified professionals. thus, instead of carrying out lengthy selection processes such as individual interviews, recruiters can evaluate participants based on their performance in the competition, considering aspects such as the ability to work in a team, to specific individual aptitudes.

what are the types of hackathon?

originally, the hackathon was structured as a fully face-to-face dynamic, however, with the advent of the covid-19 pandemic, the need to hold online events ended up being imposed. one of the first and most important was an extraordinary edition of one of the biggest hackathons in the world, which is promoted annually by the NASA incubator. the competition, the NASA international space apps covid-19 challenge, was held 100% remotely over a period of 48 hours in may 2020, and featured participating teams from 80 countries that worked to find solutions to minimize the impact of covid-19 pandemic.

after the return of face-to-face activities, and with the improvement of the online versions, hybrid hackathons emerged, which combine characteristics of both modalities. thus, with regard to the format of realization, there are now three types of hackathon:

. the face-to-face: the classic way, how it came about. participants meet in a physical space for a certain time and work in teams;

. remote or online: the modality emerged driven by the pandemic, when face-to-face meetings were restricted, here the teams meet in virtual video conference rooms, being able to count in parallel with other digital platforms as support for the management of stages and tasks;

. the hybrids: finally, from the perspective of the category, it mixes face-to-face meetings with remote dynamics, in a dimension that we understand as phygital space-time, which ends up also expanding the possibilities of interaction and duration of events.

and how to conduct a hackhaton in strateegia?

strateegia is ideal for conducting creative collaborations – which is the conceptual essence of a hackathon. as a knowledge sharing and management platform, strateegia offers the structure for ideation around challenges, based on divergences, synthesis debates and convergences, in asynchronous (or not), iterative and incremental journeys. collective intelligence is stimulated without dissipating individual values. in addition, it offers integration capabilities with other platforms, such as video conferencing, making it possible to support all stages of the dynamics.

in strateegia it is possible to provide all the content necessary to carry out the hackathon, as well as to structure tasks and mentorships, with the possibility of evaluating the engagement rate of all its participants. thanks to its versatility, strateegia can function as a support platform for both remote and hybrid hackathons.

we put together a free template in strateegia to help you structure and carry out your hackathon and to better understand how to do it, you can watch this video with very cool tips that will help you.