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Template for running a company hackathon.

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On Wednesday you will work in a small team and build something innovative. Hackathons are for everyone, not just technical people, and they only work when teams are cross-functional.

You must create something totally new. Hackathons are for ambitious, weird ideas, trying new things, and learning new technologies.

the teams that have created truly innovative products and addressed real, practical problems are cross-functional teams with members from all across the company ~ DigitalOcean

Loom introduction can be found here: [removed as confidential]

How it will work

• Form your team
  • It must be:
    • 4-6 people per team
    • No single-function teams (no all engineering, or all marketing)
    • At least two different functions on every team
    • At least 1 software/content engineer per team
  • You can self organise, or be put into a group automatically, by using this form
    • If you want to self organise your team, move yourself into a team by EoD Sept 15th
    • If you want us to assign you a team, highlight your name on the spreadsheet yellow
• Pick an idea before the hackathon starts
  • You each, before ****the day starts, propose an idea and then vote to select (you can’t vote on your own)
  • The idea should address a problem listed in the next section
  • Once your team has their idea, run it by Ben (by Slack). It shouldn’t be something you think he will like, but an idea you and your team are excited to build!
  • Its important you finalise the idea 1 day before the Hackathon starts.
• Build and present
  • Spend Wednesday building!
  • At 4:30pm, you will have exactly 60 seconds to present your work and idea.

What to build!!!

You need to build something that solves one of the following problems - this section is very important to the success of the hackathon, please read the problem spaces carefully, and think deeply about what problem you’re building to solve:

[removed as confidential]

Idea guidance:

• It must be something totally new, pitching ideas on our existing roadmap is forbidden
• It must be on a problem set out above. However, there will be an open wildcard, for those who have an idea that is not on the list above.

You must have something to show for your work. It doesn't need to be a product feature you're building, but (as an example) a standalone side car product that supports your idea.

You must ship it. Demos are mandatory, a slide deck alone isn't a demo, bring something people can actually see!

Hackathon Preparation

Doing preparation before the Hackathon will be really important, every minute really matters, and you only have the day to build something.

We encourage you to walk in with your idea already scoped, your team aligned on who's doing what, and a rough plan for the day, so you're building from 9am, not still deciding what to build.