Hackathons are the most productive developer hangout
There are many talented and promising developers in different countries. How can companies find them that need to solve a specific problem related to the development of an IT product?
Maksym Prokhorov, founder and managing partner PM PARTNERS
Hackathons help to answer this question. What kind of event and who actually benefits from it, we will analyze in detail.
History at 20: how hackathons began
The term “hackathon” (English hackathon, hackathon from hacker “hacker” and marathon “marathon”) was first used by the OpenBSD developers in Calgary, Canada on June 4, 1999. That is what they called the meeting on cryptography. The first hackathon was attended by 10 developers, they wrote programs that would not fall under the strict export restrictions imposed by the United States on cryptographic software.
Such events have become more common since the mid-2000s. Companies and investors, conducting them, pursued the main goal — to quickly get new products in the field of technology or investment.
History knows cases when new companies were even created during the hackathon. For example, this is how GroupMe appeared in 2010 — during the hackathon of the TechCrunch Disrupt conference. Imagine that literally in 2011, Skype bought it for $ 85 million.
Another of the many examples is the MSQRD application created during one of the hackathons. In 2016, MSQRD acquired Facebook.
Why do you need it?
To get the maximum result, since all participants are fully focused on the task at hand.
Developers work in small teams, typically three to five people. Limited time and an element of competition between mini-teams are an incentive to find non-standard solutions as soon as possible.
For their part, the organizers of the hackathon put the problem into a case and involve their experts for consultations.
The hackathon gives developers the opportunity to get to know the sponsoring company better, show their project, gain new skills and expand their circle of professional contacts, and possibly create their own startup.
The winners also become the owners of the prize fund and can implement a pilot project with the company that set the task for the hackathon. And this is not a complete list of benefits for participants in such marathons. For example, you can get sponsored branded products, cash rewards or a certificate. There are also cases when talented developers are taken to an acceleration program or to a certain position in a company.
The main goals of holding hackathons for organizers and sponsors:
- highlight promising specialists or even teams;
- solve a specific business problem;
- launch a pilot project of a new application or service;
- make an investment in a potentially interesting and promising project at its initial stage.
