Forem: carlosmendes-taikai

The best projects from ETH Lisbon 2022

carlosmendes-taikai — Thu, 24 Nov 2022 11:45:41 +0000

One of the best ETH events in 2022, ETH Lisbon, took place from the 28th to the 30th of October. This Ethereum-focused hackathon had over 330 participants and 97 projects delivered using TAIKAI’s hackathon platform.

This large number of developers did not happen by chance. In addition to the ability to create innovative projects, the total prize was $20,000, with the best 10 projects earning 2,000$ each.

There were also sponsor bounties worth up to $118,500!

In order to compete for these prizes, participants teamed up using TAIKAI’s matchmaking system, resulting in 97 projects delivered that were evaluated by 13 juries.

We’ve analyzed the projects and compiled a list of the best ones, divided by categories.

The best DAO and DeFi projects from ETH Lisbon

Lekker Finance

Before we get into the details of this project, which was named one of the top ten hackathon projects at ETH Lisbon, it's important to understand that it uses the Euler Protocol, an Ethereum-based non-custodial DeFi (Decentralized Finance) protocol that allows users to lend and borrow almost any crypto asset.
This is important to understand because the Lekker Finance project's goal is to allow users to enter leveraged positions via Euler.
The hackathon system works as follows: positions can be opened in a single transaction using flash swaps, making the process easier for the end user. It's no coincidence that the project’s slogan is Leverage Made Simple.
Typically, in order to obtain leverage, users must execute multiple loan-swap-loan transactions, resulting in a complex manual process and high fees.
Also, this makes loans and investments more difficult to trace and exit.

With Lekker Finance, interest rates are reduced by simplifying the process on a single transaction, as opposed to what happens in centralized exchanges, for example.

GlacierDAO

Elected as one of the Top 10 hackathon projects of ETH Lisbon, GlacierDAO has proposed a Decentralized Autonomous Organization that preserves open-source code as a public good.
The project's authors argue that code, like data, should be preserved in a censorship-resistant manner.
The concept arose after some developers complained that their GitHub accounts had been suspended for writing tornado cash codes.
To clarify, tornado cash works as a token mixer, used to shuffle transactions in a way that makes tracking difficult in public blockchains like Ethereum.
To ensure the preservation of open source, GlacierDAO conducts a call for funds every quarter. Individuals donate funds to cover the costs of preserving codes in exchange for NFTs.

On the other hand, a call for URLs is issued at the same time, which means that individuals can submit URLs to code repositories that they believe are valuable.
URLs are placed on a list for those who contributed funds to vote on whether the code should be preserved.
The funds raised will then be used to ensure the code's preservation on the FileCoin Network, an open-source peer-to-peer network that stores files, protocols, and incentive layers. In other words, users pay storage providers to store their files and this payment is made through investors in the GlacierDAO strategy.

BibliothecaDAO - Realms Assassins

Bibliotheca DAO is a web3 game development studio that creates on-chain games for StarkNet, a permissionless decentralized Validity-Rollup (also known as a "ZK-Rollup").
A team from Bibliotheca DAO developed a solution on ETH Lisbon to hide one player's information and expose it only when other players meet on-chain conditions.
They accomplished this through the use of a trusted 'dungeon master' (third party) who stores private information to enable multiplayer on-chain games, achieving an on-chain without the ZK hashing construction.

To get it done, they used the game Realms Assassins – Fog of War as an example. The project was also one of the 10 hackathon winners presented on ETH Lisbon.

The best crypto wallet projects

Archive the Web

This project was also named one of the hackathon's top ten projects and won first place in the Wallet Connect best public good bounty.
The idea was to create an automatic website archiving system based on web3 protocols that could be paid for with a variety of crypto assets, acting as a decentralized backup of the world wide web.
The "Archive the Web" system enables users to automate website archiving on the Arweave decentralized protocol at predetermined intervals (for example, every 60 minutes) for an approximate duration (for example, 365 days) and pay for data storage with ETH, ERC-20, or AR.
It means that users can permanently and automatically save information, apps, and other content (such as images or web apps), preventing data published on the internet from being lost, as happens in many cases every day.

To achieve this, the Archive the Web team created a custom Metamask and a WalletConnect button that allows direct interaction with Arweave and uses the arp Ethereum signer to interact with Smartweave contracts via ETH/ERC20 wallets.

WalletConnect meets Self-Sovereign Identity

Winner of the Wallet Connect Best Mobile UX bounty, this project extends the WalletConnect V2 protocol stack to enable Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI), exchanging Decentralized Identifiers and W3C Verifiable Credentials in a secure, privacy-respecting, and user-friendly manner.
But don’t take our word for it.

Testamint

Testamint, one of the zkSync bounty winners, is a social recovery mobile dApp project that uses zkSync account abstraction to allow account recovery by a group of trusted people after a predetermined interval of inactivity.
It specifically addresses three issues: lost keys, lost passphrases, and death. Yes, that's right: if a cryptocurrency holder passes away, family members can recover it using this dApp.
The solution connects wallets through Wallet Connect and allows users to create a list of family members, set up periodic reminders to prove the user is still alive, and record a video testimonial that will be delivered to family members if the user fails to prove he or she is still alive.
Furthermore, the solution provides the user with the "still here" button to complete a transaction and prove the user is still alive.

The best dApps and smart contract projects

Smart What?!

During ETH Lisbon, this project, which promised to be a Google Translator for Smart Contracts, was rewarded in the Wallet Connect - Best Mobile UX bounty category.
The idea was to help web2 users understand smart contracts better by "translating" smart contract contents. The goal is to make smart contracts and the web3 world more accessible by providing a thorough understanding of the content.
The mechanism is quite straightforward. Users only need to paste a smart contract URL to get a full translation that anyone with web2 code/math knowledge can understand.
Then, it is possible to save these translations or use Wallet Connect to upload them on Filecoins IPFS.
This tool can also be used by auditing firms to review smart contracts. It saves time and allows less experienced team members to get an audit started.
You can test it right now by entering the URL of your smart contract on the Smart What website.

SafeCheck

This fantastic tool was one of the top ten winners of the ETH Lisbon hackathon. The team's concept was to design a solution that could provide users with information about the outcome of transactions and the addresses they are interacting with, before sending transactions.
In other words, users can analyze smart contract data and transactions before signing them.
SafeCheck can be added as an extension to MetaMask accounts or used directly on the web app by entering a smart contract number and letting SafeCheck inspect it. Additionally, transaction calls can be simulated directly from the web app.
Here's a sample of the SafeCheck web app interface:

And here is how it works when connected with MetaMask:

Trust score snap

This intriguing project was chosen as one of the top ten projects from the ETH Lisbon hackathon. The idea is to show color flags that indicate how safe it is to interact with specific smart contracts: green (safe to use), orange (warning), and red (dangerous).
It acts as a MetaMask Snap extension that reads and categorizes smart contracts based on a security suspicion standard determined by Trust Score.
The project's authors intended to provide users with non-technical information using a simple way to determine whether a smart contract is safe to interact with.
The system automatically analyzes quantitative and qualitative data about a smart contract, such as its popularity (how many people have interacted with it), time of existence (contract age/antiquity), frequency (recent number of interactions), repetition (how many times each user has interacted with the contract), and so on.
Here’s an example analysis:

Honorable Mentions

Overall, the ETH Lisbon hackathon had some pretty amazing projects!
Curating this list was a tough task too. In total, 97 incredible projects were delivered but it would be too much information to include them all here.
However, to provide a better overview of the event, we compiled a list of "honorable mentions", which is comprised of a handful of projects that caught our attention.

Zilly

This creative idea was rewarded as one of ETH Lisbon's best projects. The Zully project proposes an embeddable widget for developing Web3 membership programs that increase brand engagement and loyalty.
The project's concept is based on users receiving a membership card and accumulating loyalty points by completing on-chain and off-chain quests.
In exchange, they receive a customizable NFT membership, granting users social status and increasing their sense of belonging to a brand community.
There is a utility shop on the widget where users can spend points to get perks and exclusive benefits.

Multi Resolver Snap

The Multi Resolver Snap project provides a solution for creating a friendlier web3 environment for both users and developers.
The author's idea was to create a snap on MataMask that allows users to send cryptocurrency in a more straightforward manner. It is possible to send crypto to anything using Multi Resolver, such as Twitter names, emails, phone numbers. In other words, this snap enables users to convert any object to an address and send value transactions.
According to the author of the project: “This multi-resolver MetaMask Snap enables dApps to send transactions to string-type handles that can take on a multitude of origins.
Instead of integrating multiple domain services and resolvers individually, dApps can now simply call this snap and let MetaMask do the rest”.

Authsome

This project won the Fuel Labs bounty at ETH Lisbon. Authsome creates a multi-signature wallet with the Fuel Virtual Machine (FuelVM) predicate system and the Sway programming language (Fuel's own domain-specific language).
This multi-signature wallet is then used to power a pluggable authentication infrastructure, much like Web3Auth works.

Here’s how it works:
The user logs in to Athsome using their Fuel email and password. Then, Authsome generates three keys automatically: one is password-encrypted and sent to the backend service; another is stored in the browser's local storage; the third is saved in a file for manual recovery. Following that, the user can make payments.

For the ones who do not know Fuel, it is a fast execution layer for modular blockchains, and FuelVM is one of the central technology pillars, designed to reduce wasteful processing in traditional blockchain virtual machine architectures.

Final Thoughts

ETH Lisbon hackathon was incredibly fun, exciting and competitive. These challenges provide a space for developers, innovators and enthusiasts to brainstorm ideas and develop projects that help the web3 space grow.
This hackathon was also an excellent validation that hackathons are here to stay. We learned a lot from these projects and shared a glimpse of the obstacles, iterations and opportunities available right now.
Now it's up to you! Browse our hackathons page and start building today.

Host hackathons at TAIKAI

TAIKAI's hackathon platform is the perfect place to host your web3 hackathon.
No matter if the hackathon is online or hybrid, we can help you drive innovation and engagement.
Here's a glimpse of what our platform offers:

Simple communication among all parties involved: organizers, participants, and mentors;
Logical and user-friendly hackathon page for organizing and presenting content, rules, prizes, timeline, and updates;
Matchmaking system: Allow participants to team up and form groups based on each one's abilities;
Submission projects: Enable rich formats in project submissions including images, videos, and attachments;
Live streaming: Broadcast content, such as lectures and workshops;
Transparent voting system: Tokens are used to evaluate projects, ensuring transparency and equal opportunities.

Request a demo today and take your hackathon to the next level.

HILTI case study: attract and validate talent with hiring challenges

carlosmendes-taikai — Fri, 03 Dec 2021 15:56:44 +0000

Recruitment processes need a significant amount of time and effort, not just for human resource departments, but also for the department for which the position is intended.

Today, we'll show you how to streamline the validation process of hiring a candidate, making it both faster and more reliable, and less dependent on intra-team cooperation.

The HILTI challenge will serve as the basis for our case study. Their challenge was a success not only in terms of generating innovative solutions but more importantly, identifying and recruiting highly skilled talent. You can also learn more about how to recruit talent using a hackathon.

Through this "2021 HILTI Smart Construction" case study, we will address:

What is a hiring challenge
How to use a hiring challenge to attract and validate talent
HILTI's challenge: main takeaways and insights

What's a hiring challenge? 🤔

A hiring challenge is a step in the recruitment process, meant to validate a candidate's hard and soft skills.

Simply put, it's a test for applicants which will determine their competencies, core skills, and commitment to the role they're applying for.

This test can have several steps, depending on the recruiter's needs. It can also be used for a variety of positions, including software engineering, human resources, marketing, product management, and even sales, to mention a few.

About HILTI 👷‍♂️

The HILTI Group provides technologically leading products, systems, software, and services to the global construction and energy industries.

The company, from Liechtenstein, employs 30,000 people worldwide who strive to make construction work easier, faster, and safer while inspiring customers every day.

HILTI invests roughly 6% of its yearly sales in research and development, demonstrating that the company will not discard innovation anytime soon.

2021 HILTI Smart Construction hiring challenge 🚧

The HILTI Smart Construction Challenge was conceived to develop, test, and validate new ideas for complex construction needs.

By using real-world data, participants were invited to develop a concept or solution that uses new technologies like IoT, computer vision and robots, to capture and contextualize relevant data in the field.

In a traditional hiring process, having one challenge is enough to engage with candidates and test their skills. However, HILTI opted to run a hybrid model between a hackathon and a hiring challenge.

This means that on the one hand, the challenges launched aimed to validate solutions to real problems in the construction industry.

On the other one, HILTI wanted to move forward with the best project, offering the winners a position in the company, and the opportunity to turn their prototype into a real solution as a reward.

Challenge results ✅

97 participants engaged
15 projects delivered

The 2021 HILTI Smart Construction Challenge was a success! 97 participants joined the event and 15 projects were delivered at the end.

The challenges ⚙️

HILTI decided not to address a specific problem, but instead, provided a set of challenges that participants could work on.

Here's a quick overview of some of them:

Jobsite visualization: Create a digital jobsite that follows the real world one, capturing data in order to save field visits time on large-scale projects.

Progress management: The tasks completion statuses are still manually filled, making it very time-consuming and inefficient. Developing a process to monitor and track this data will enable smoother operations.

Enable field collaboration: Improve communication between stakeholders and task assignment efficiency between teams, external partners, and experts.

Ensure safe and solid construction: Developing 'smart' applications that collect, monitor, and report safety data metrics, to identify leaks, corrosion, cracks, and other vital maintenance elements.

The importance of adapting the challenge to the position you're hiring for ✔

Setting clear goals and expectations for the challenge is, of course, essential.

Keep in mind that some participants may be approaching the company for the first time.

In addition to demonstrating the company's strategy and goal, you must design a challenge that is tailored to the position, the desired hard skills, and the average experience of the candidates.

Also, don't forget to describe the challenge in detail, as well as the deliverables and the end goal.

Key elements of a hiring challenge setup 🔑

Although the challenge's choice has a huge impact on its outcome, there are other factors to consider in order to ensure an excellent, transparent, and fair execution.

HILTI did an excellent job organizing this recruitment challenge, so we can examine each of the following topics and draw lessons from it:

Timeline ⏳

The length of the challenge varies according to the position you're hiring for, but it should always be aligned with your recruiting process.

HILTI's timeframe was broken down into several steps:

Registration and project submission

Initial HILTI expert review
Semifinals
Refinement of selected projects
Grand final

The projects that advanced were analyzed by each innovation sector within the company and the best ones were selected for a presentation in Paris, in a multi-day event.

Main takeaway
One of the reasons we loved HILTI's challenge so much is because they did things differently. By hosting such a unique hiring challenge, they showed everyone why innovation is what drives businesses forward.
We are not expecting this challenge to be replicable in every company, but instead, to provide some really solid ideas when it comes to recruiting highly specialized talent.

Resources 🧰

Without a doubt, presenting the necessary resources to the participants is one of the most critical elements of a hiring challenge.

HILTI didn't hold back and provided a comprehensive and applicable source directory for the challenge, including graphics, documents, statistics, CAD files, among other materials.

It is critical to analyze the provided information before initiating a challenge, as it may not be enough for innovators to construct a well-designed project. However, you should also point out that external research should be conducted by the participants.

The position 🥇

As we mentioned earlier, the goal of this recruitment hackathon was to offer a position in the innovation department at HILTI.

The opportunity could be to develop the winning project and transform the prototype into a fully functional solution, or to become involved in other advanced technology initiatives of HILTI.

The market leader company went even a step further: the chosen top teams were invited to the Finals event in Paris, with travel and accommodation expenses covered by Hilti.

The Winner! 🏆

The winning project came from a solo member and he developed a prototype to track tools usage in day-to-day operations.
By having access to this resource, teams can visualize the data and understand which tools are used, at what time, where, and for what purposes.

Then, by resorting to machine learning, the data extracted could be used to optimize a multitude of work tasks, such as, for example, identifying the best tools for a given task, or even detecting misusage or unsafe manner during tool operations.

Final thoughts 💭

We hope that this case study has given you a better view of today's recruiting challenges, as well as solutions to them. Because of its "outside-the-box" approach, the 2021 HILTI Smart Construction Challenge was a massive success.

Unlike a conventional recruitment process, this challenge enabled HILTI to identify exceptional ideas to innovate the construction sector, identify and hire highly skilled individuals, and build brand engagement, reinforcing its position as a sector leader.

At TAIKAI, we began to notice that hackathon organizers saw significant potential in the best participants, and it was quite typical to reach out to them at the end of the hackathon to recruit these talents.

After all, being a hackathon winner indicates that they understand the company's challenges and are already aligned with its mission and vision.

Companies see a candidate who has already shown commitment, dedication, and effort in the development of a project. The hard skills validation has already been completed, thus the final step is to recruit them.

TAIKAI's purpose is to provide a bridge between the community and organizations. That's why we're incredibly excited to share that we're working on a hiring challenge tool!

This technology seeks to help businesses attract and validate talent more quickly and reliably, while applicants can earn KAI tokens by executing the project. This way, we can provide an incentive for the community to apply for a certain vacancy, and you can be confident that the applicants are interested in your hiring challenge.

We are offering a one-month free trial (for one hiring position). If you'd like to try out our tool, feel free to contact us!

How to master open hackathons: CASSINI case study

carlosmendes-taikai — Mon, 29 Nov 2021 10:18:11 +0000

Have you ever wondered what it takes to run a successful open hackathon?

We analyzed the CASSINI hackathon in detail in order to provide you with insights from our client, so you can easily repeat them step-by-step and structure your next hackathon.

CASSINI makes up for a great example. They already have previous experience in organizing hackathons and were able to gather more than 500 participants! Also, the hackathon took place simultaneously in 10 different countries!

In this article we will cover:

CASSINI program
About the Hackathon
About the participants
Results obtained
Key Insights

First, there are two different types of hackathons: internal and open hackathons.

Today, we’ll focus on the latter, but if you want to know more about in-company hackathons we suggest you read our Taboola case study.

Before we discuss the hackathon itself, it’s important to understand what’s the CASSINI program about, and the scope of the challenge.

CASSINI: An European Union initiative 🇪🇺

CASSINI Hackathons and Mentoring are a series of six, bi-annual hackathons, organized by the European Union to address global issues through European space technologies.

These hackathon series are part of a bigger EU action plan for the years 2021 to 2027, which includes the CASSINI Seed and Growth Funding Facility, CASSINI Matchmaking with investors and large enterprises, CASSINI Business Accelerator, and others.

The hackathons took place in ten cities across Europe and provided participants with access to pre-processed Arctic data, on-demand training, and other essential tools to support them in addressing one of three challenges.

The purpose of this hackathon

The Space Entrepreneurship Initiative aimed to encourage a market-driven space industry in Europe, and CASSINI hackathons have a very important role in this program: to reach creative, young people, interested in developing innovative digital applications based on space data and potentially becoming entrepreneurs.

The Hackathon: Connecting the Arctic 🐻‍❄️

575 participants
84 projects delivered
2 months total duration

We’ve talked about how the hackathon initiatives are part of an EU space program, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into space exploration or going to Mars.

The Connecting the Arctic hackathon focused on finding solutions for the most pressing issues facing the Arctic region through space technology tools, such as Galileo and Copernicus satellites.

Utilizing space tech to address climate issues is a great example of how you can leverage the resources you have, in order to reach a broader audience.

The challenges

This hackathon was comprised of 3 different challenges:

Challenge #1: Ensure safe transportation at sea.
Participants were urged to research navigation route optimization, extreme weather and sea ice warnings, future shipping lane expansion and connectivity, and environmental disaster and emergency management.

Challenge #2: Life on Land
Participants were compelled to look into subjects including environmental monitoring and climate change mitigation, renewable energy breakthroughs, and improved connectivity for remote research stations.

Challenge #3: Caring for our Wildlife
To bring the concept to life, participants had at their disposal European space data, signals from secure connectivity infrastructures, Copernicus, Galileo, and EGNOS satellites.

Structure & Timeline ⌚

In order to host a successful open hackathon, you must take into account the timeline and structure of the event.

Too little time between stages can become a huge problem later in project development, but too much time might seem like a never-ending challenge for participants, and eventually lead to a sense of disconnection.

The CASSINI hackathon structure was split into three phases:

**
Registration phase: 2 months**

There isn’t a perfect answer when it comes to choosing for how long you should have registrations open, as it highly depends on your capability of reaching the desired number of participants.

As a rule of thumb, it’s better to have a more extensive deadline rather than reaching the final day and ruling out potential participants.

- Big ideas campaign: 3 days

CASSINI also ran a series of online events 3 days before the closing registration deadline. This was a great experiment for many reasons:

Provided information to participants about the challenge and the supporting data;
Gave them a window to find teammates and network;
Generated hype and buzz around the event, leading to more last-minute registrations.

Hackathon event: 2 days

The moment all the hard work comes together into play. The event duration is typically one or two days for most hackathons but can go all the way up to five days.

Demo day & awards: 1 day

The presentation and voting are usually on the last day of the hackathon event, however, CASSINI chose to do it a few days later, given that the projects had to be validated first by the local organizers.

Collaboration with local partners 🤝

CASSINI Hackathons are held in 10 different locations simultaneously, and in order to do that, they must rely on competent local entities to ensure the hackathon is done properly.

For the second hackathon edition, the chosen countries were:

Croatia 🇭🇷
Finland 🇫🇮
France 🇫🇷
Germany 🇩🇪
Iceland 🇮🇸
Italy 🇮🇹
Latvia 🇱🇻
Romania 🇷🇴
Slovakia 🇸🇰
Spain 🇪🇸

Opening applications to external organizations was very important in order to obtain such a high number of participants.

Local organizations worked as promoters and spread the word about the event. In turn, they had the chance to cooperate in a European Union space program, access networking opportunities inside the EU, and position themselves as market leaders.

Prizes and Rewards 💶

The “Connect the Arctic” hackathon had two categories of prizes. The main prize was 100 hours of mentoring, awarded to the top 3 overall winners.

However, CASSINI went a step further and also rewarded the top 3 projects by country with monetary prizes ranging from 250€ to 3000€, depending on the region and placement, plus a shot at an incubation program in some countries.

Having these incentives meant that in total, 30 teams would qualify for a monetary prize, even if they weren’t considered the best 3 overall.

Mentors and Judges 🧑‍⚖️

In this open hackathon, CASSINI had 35 mentors and a panel of 11 judges.

Let’s break it down:

The high number of mentors is directly correlated to the prizes given by CASSINI. Even though there was also a monetary incentive, the biggest reward for innovators was the 100 hours of expert mentoring. By having a varied number of mentors, they could reinforce the value of the prize.

As for the juries, the main takeaway is that they should have considerable knowledge and experience in the field, as well as be an authority in the community.

You can select judges from your company to evaluate projects, but you can also reach out to other names in your industry.

Now that we've addressed the hackathon, let's move on to the next section and learn more about the community. After all, they are the focus of your hackathon.

How to get more registrations for your hackathon 👨‍💻👩‍💻

It’s not easy to obtain over five hundred participants in a single event!

It’s also one of the reasons we decided to choose the CASSINI hackathon for this case study.

We’ve conducted further research and found key patterns to get more participants that can be replicated in any hackathon.

Community management tools ⚙️

At TAIKAI we provide all the tools you need to host a hackathon, however, we cannot overlook the importance of managing the community throughout the event.

**
CASSINI had two major touchpoints with innovators that can boost your community:**

Creating a landing page is a great way to keep users updated 📃

Even though CASSINI is part of a bigger project (and organization, for that matter), that didn’t stop them from creating their unique website dedicated to this program.

With eye-catching graphics & animations, a clear message, and detailed information about the event, this website had everything a potential participant could be looking for.

Use Discord as a hack to engage with your community 💬

Discord, Slack, or other chat-based apps are one of the best ways to engage with your audience.

Most of the tools are freemium, but you can also take a look at the resources you already have at your disposal. Just note that the tool must be easy to access and use.

Overcomplicating can have a negative impact on the number of innovators that join your channel.

Find your ideal participant ✔️

Having a clear understanding of who your participants are is crucial to the success of the hackathon, as even the slightest mistake in your target audience can have a meaningful impact later on.

For example, if your hackathon’s goal was to manage big data and create a better annual report for your company, you’re probably looking for data analysts. Targeting professionals from every computer science field would most likely bring poorer results, than just focusing on data scientists.

*Here are some questions you should ask yourself in order to understand the community better: *

Are we targeting a specific participant role or multiple ones?
What role is that? (Web developers? Data analysts? Product managers?)
Does my challenge have a strong UI/UX/Design requirement?
Are my goals broad or very specific?
Where can I find my target audience?
What social channels and communities do they participate in the most?

As for CASSINI, they chose to widen the participant group by inviting anyone with a passion for entrepreneurship, nature, and EU space technologies to participate.

The emphasis was on skills such as creativity, entrepreneurship, and design, rather than specific roles, like software engineers.

Be flexible ⚖️

The subject of satellite navigation and space technology is so massive, that it could have thrown people away, especially if they didn’t have prior knowledge of the hackathon.

CASSINI knew this could pose a threat and decided to educate the community. They clearly stated that anyone could apply without previous knowledge or experience in EU space technologies, as they would provide the necessary training and data access to help succeed in the event.

Be inclusive 🌎

Furthermore, if a participant was not from one of the 10 local host countries, they could still apply to join the hackathon! Those innovators were simply fitted into the nearest country challenge and would compete there.

Start gathering participants long before the hackathon begins

CASSINI focused on getting users to register in their newsletter.

Email marketing is still a great and effective way to engage with users. On one hand, they chose to subscribe to it, which is a proactive indicator of interest.

Secondly, you can use this channel to keep them up to date with news, schedules and convey any other information you deem important.

Hackathon results 💯

Results recap:
575 participants
84 projects delivered
30 local winning projects
3 EU winning projects

A hackathon is never just a hackathon. Your primary goal is to find a solution to an existing problem, but there are other benefits you can reap.

Here are the main results the CASSINI open hackathon - Connecting the Arctic - obtained:

1. Three great projects selected

The winning projects can be further developed and implemented, creating solutions that help society, wildlife, and transportation in the Arctic region.

*2. Increased brand awareness
*
Not just for the CASSINI hackathon, but for the overall European Union program and space technologies.

3. Engage with a young, hungry, and tech-savvy community

The effects of this event will go way beyond the hackathons. Through CASSINI, the EU is planting the seed in young European innovators, and it has the potential to collect the fruits in years to come.

Key Insights to take from this open hackathon case study 💡

Hackathon recap:
    2 months hackathon duration
    10 co-host countries
    35 mentors
    11 judges

Have a clear, measurable, and obtainable goal of what you want to achieve with the hackathon.
Have realistic expectations about the outcome of the challenge.
Provide complete information about the challenge(s) at hand.
Provide any necessary support data for participants to work on.
Find ways to create hype about your hackathon: Cassini hosted their big ideas campaign 3 days prior to the main event, and that was a great tool to sustain engagement, generate buzz and increase the number of participants.
Evaluate the need and importance of having co-hosts in your hackathon, as they can help you to promote your event and reach to a broader audience.
Conduct research to find the ideal audience for your hackathon.
Engage with your community during the hackathon. Participants will have doubts and questions during the challenge. It’s up to you - the host - to always assist them and make them feel comfortable in the project they’re developing. The quality of their projects relies on having a solid understanding of the challenge.

Final Thoughts 💭

Open hackathons are a powerful tool and can be structured in many different ways. In this case study, we shed a light on CASSINI: a great example of a hackathon done right.

It’s incredible to see that public entities - such as the European Union - are at the forefront of innovation. Hosting not one, but six different hackathons shows the belief of the EU in this type of event, and how it can help to drive innovation.

This hackathon was hosted at TAIKAI: our all-in-one virtual hackathon platform.

We know that learning how to organize a hackathon can be a challenge without the correct tools, so we’ve simplified the process to create a better experience for your organization.

Microsoft, Pfizer, European Union and NISSAN, are just a few brands that have already made part of our amazing challenges and hackathons. Now it’s your turn.
Launch your challenge or request a demo today.

5 Inspiring hackathon project ideas

carlosmendes-taikai — Tue, 16 Nov 2021 17:45:18 +0000

Winning a hackathon is not easy and you know it.

We’ve already shared some tips you should follow to improve your chances of winning one, but everything will revolve around your idea for the project.

There are quite a few articles out there with generic and outdated ideas.

If you really want to stand out from the crowd, you need to understand the context of each project and how they won the hackathon.

We’ll show you examples of real, winning hackathon projects, so you can adapt the ideas to your own project, as you see fit.

Whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned participant, these hackathon ideas should get you inspired and ready to rock 🤘

Winning Hackathon Project Ideas 🥇

1. Dedicated Marketplace and Community Hub 🖼️

The Challenge: #hackARThon

The prime goal of this hackathon was to render NFTs more accessible to a wider audience, while also giving artists more control over all elements of their creation, including distribution and monetization.

Community-oriented hackathons are absolutely fantastic because you feel your work will have a direct impact on people’s lives.

The team behind the “ARTIST-Made” project opted to create a Marketplace and Community Hub that provided limited edition art & design NFT items.

Their goal was to “match lovers of Art & Design, Creative Minds, and Art Community” in a special hub, comprised of a marketplace and mobile app.

This project was incredible.

For starters, it was exactly in line with the goal of the challenge.

Secondly, a marketplace & hub meant that every party would use the platform, not just the artists:

Creators had a place to share their work digitally, get recognition, and most importantly, monetize it.
Art & Design Lovers had a niche platform to share their passion, access exclusive content, and communicate with each other.
Organizations, galleries, museums, and other entities had a social channel to share their events and promote their offering.

The Hack 💻

Community-oriented hackathons are absolutely fantastic because your work has a direct impact on people’s lives. Developing a marketplace & community hub is an interesting approach to connect communities and organizations, especially if you can provide great value for both.

This project idea was extremely well detailed and presented, making it a clear winner of the hackathon and a great source of inspiration for those that follow.

Even though the challenge was focused on NFT technology, you can adapt the idea for other types of industries and communities.

2. An AI, Satellite-based Navigation Platform 🛰️

*The Challenge: CASSINI Hackathon *

The second edition of the CASSINI Hackathon aimed to find solutions to protect and support the precious Arctic region. Open sea mobility, environmental monitoring and wildlife protection were the 3 main categories innovators could choose from.

This hackathon was extremely popular and brought together more than 570 participants!

The “PolarBearings” project was one of the winners.

They created an AI-based polar navigation platform that provided optimal routing for land vehicles in arctic regions, influenced by climate change.

Did you know Arctic communities have to cross frozen lakes and ice roads for both personal and commercial needs? With the increasing temperatures due to climate change, these routes are becoming more and more dangerous.

PolarBearings team tackled the challenge and used two components to craft this brilliant project:

A data platform that uses machine learning;
Satellite data for real-time ice trail safety predictions (using Copernicus) and navigation (using Galileo).

We reached out to Thomas Metcalfe, who was part of the PolarBearings team, and he kindly shared with us their ideation process:

“At first it was all market research. There wasn’t any advantage in building solutions without fully understanding the problem faced in the region. So, we all did independent research and shared our findings in Discord.

Over time, some problems gained our interest more than others - at this point, we began considering solutions.

We had maybe 2 or 3 meetings where we began pitching potential ideas, and through our discussions (and advice from the experts), we slowly eliminated ideas until we arrived at the one we were most confident in.”

The Hack 💻

AI product & service applications are becoming increasingly popular. The demand is also higher than ever.

Obviously, we know that satellite navigation isn’t easily accessible and replicable.

But your focus should be on the AI component, and how this German team managed to leverage the power of artificial intelligence to develop a project that prioritizes safety and reliability.

And while their goal could have been just to design the technical side of the technology, they still managed to prototype a mobile app, define revenue models and detail a future roadmap of operations.

3. Mobile App with a very special feature 🏷️

*The Challenge: d|Code Hackathon *

`D|Code Challenge aimed to provide the Portuguese national post services a solution that could seamlessly read the barcodes containing all the data about a specific package.

The application had to be able to recognize all of the information on the code and display it on the screen.`

“Post it” was the winner project of this hackathon.

The team of just two Brazilians developed a mobile app that delivered on its promise: they created a fast and accurate bus code (similar to a barcode), that could read the item information and present it on the mobile device.

The Hack 💻

Sometimes, less is more. Many hackathons have different challenges, but others have just one target in their minds such as this one.

This project was a huge success since it addressed CTT's key pain point and solved it with a simple and effective tool. The team employed bus code technology to create a reading process that was swift, efficient, and, most importantly, capable of working without an internet connection in remote locations!

They've also integrated this system with the smartphone app, making it easier for courier distributors to operate on a daily basis.

4. AI-Based Violence Detection System 🙅‍♂️

*The Challenge: BitHacks Hackathon *

BitHacks is a platform for AI Social Impact. They reached out to innovators to find solutions for existing social problems, through AI-based applications.

Project “JustView” was one of the winners. The team decided to address social justice, in the form of a very controversial topic lately - police brutality.

The lack of accountability of policemen has been a hot trend - especially in the USA - but with repercussions all over the world.

That’s why the team decided to develop an AI-based violence detection system.

Police officers are using bodycams to record their interactions with citizens, but even then, the “large amount of camera data is not being reliably analyzed, leading to a lack of accountability”.

The goal of this great project was to collect the data, analyze it, and create an algorithm that could distinguish violent from non-violent footage. The latter would then be sent to a third-party human investigator, for further analysis.

The Hack 💻

Once again, the true power of AI is yet to be unleashed. It can (and should) be used for the benefit of the community, just like we’ve seen in this brilliant use case example.

5. Digital stickers for fast & secure ticket validations 🧾

*The Challenge: Tickethon *

`Wiener Linien - Vienna’s public transport operator - is responsible for roughly 180 underground, tram and bus lines.

The purpose of this hackathon was to find ways to improve and speed up the process of both issuing and validating digital tickets.

They also aimed to increase the efficiency of operations, the accuracy of ticket validation, as well as the overall passenger experience.`

“Quicker with a Sticker” project not only had a clever name, but also a clever hackathon idea. They used Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons and QR Codes to develop a digital sticker validation system.

This is how the system worked:

`Inspectors were assigned an animated sticker before they started the validation process.

When the user app detects one of the BLE beacons, it starts the verification process using the beacon id via the backend and, if successful, displays the sticker on the user’s screen.

Then, this sticker can be shown to the ticket inspector as proof of a valid ticket.`

This way, it was both easy and fast for inspectors and passengers to show and validate their tickets, significantly reducing queue time and overcrowding.

The Hack 💻

This winning project idea had it all. They seamlessly integrated the digital sticker system within the mobile app and proved that you can find solutions through technology, without needing to re-design major infrastructures.

Digital stickers are a great idea that can be used in a variety of settings, so they can be a great choice for your next hackathon project.

Ask yourself this questions 🙋

When starting a hackathon challenge, you should ask yourself (and your teammates) these questions:

Does my idea align with the hackathon objectives?
Can I implement every feature or do I need to focus on building a Minimum Viable Product?
Will a Proof of Concept be able to show Juries the core value of my project?
Is it possible to run this project in a real environment? (cost, time, and management wise)
Am I taking full advantage of the technologies or assets the organization is providing?

These questions will help you clear your mind, structure your ideas better and write off the ones that don’t oblige to the rules.

Now it’s your turn to hop on a hackathon, get your A-team ready and energy levels high 🔥

We provide an all-in-one hackathon platform and great challenges for you to hack.

Check our latest challenges over here and join the 50,000 innovators taking the world by storm ⚡

6 Brilliant tips to win more Hackathons

carlosmendes-taikai — Thu, 11 Nov 2021 12:48:35 +0000

Hackathons are incredibly fun and exciting events!

But they're also the ultimate endurance, perseverance and skill test. In a short span of time, participants have to gather a team, come up with ideas, develop them and pitch their hard work to a juri.

While it may be overwhelming to handle all of this in your first hackathon, that’s part of the goal - to work better, faster, and develop your skills in the process.

We also know that it can be tough for participants that put in the hard work & effort into a hackathon, but end up empty handed. Don’t let that discourage you though!

At TAIKAI, we like to reward all participants based on their effort, and not just the winning project.
That’s one reason why we are built on blockchain technology and have our own *social token - KAIs - * which you can learn more about here.

Today, however, we want to show you how you can increase your chances of winning more hackathons. We’ve spoken with the community, and more specifically, previous hackathon winners.

Together, we’ve compiled 6 amazing tips that will help you win more hackathons in the long run. Before we head into them, let's take a quick look at the types of hackathon you'll find.

Types of Hackathon

There isn’t a single type of hackathon. In fact, each has its own theme and objectives that participants have to consider. For instance, some are dedicated to developing mobile applications, video games, web applications, operating system variations, etc.

Similarly, some are also niche-based, like health, education, and transport.

Other than that, many hackathons are restricted to using specific languages or frameworks. You will also find many events organized for a certain profile such as students, females, experienced software engineers, data scientists, etc.

6 Tips to Win a Hackathon 🥇

Find the right Team for you 🤝

Choosing the right teammates is one of the core factors that can make or break your chances of winning a hackathon.

When you're building a solid network, it can be difficult to find people who are committed to developing a project from start to finish.
If you know people who have previously participated in hackathons,they should be your first priority because the competition is fierce.

Having experienced partners will undoubtedly be a plus.

The Social HackaCOM was an innovation and communication hackathon that aimed to find solutions for NGOs.

Rogerio Oliveira and his team won the challenge by creating a gamification system for NGOs, after they identified retaining volunteers was one of the major issues for this type of organization.

For him, the most important single factor was identifying the initial team setup.

“You can't win a hackathon or build a house without a good foundation” - he stated. “If you have a good and engaged team, the next stages will be successful.”

As previously said, not all hackathons are created equally.

As a result, you should bring on people who provide value to the team. When putting together your team, choose someone who has a skill set that differentiates them from the rest of the group.

Additionally, you can always rely on *TAIKAI's matchmaking system.+ It's possible to find teammates based on their skills and abilities, and you can also assess their profile, background and other projects in which they have participated.

On the other hand, it's critical that you +fill out your own profile* to the best of your ability, as other team leaders may be looking for someone to help solidify their squad.

If you’re not feeling ready to tackle a hackathon, you can read our article on how to prepare for coding challenges.

Have a clear goal ASAP! 🎯

After putting the team together, it’s time to start working on the concept you want to pursue.

You or your teammates may already have some rough ideas for the project, but you should always do a brainstorming session.

Hear everyone, debate and ask as many questions as you can think of.

This will help you visualize the project, and avoid major setbacks that usually come when you're developing it.

Micaela Raposo was part of the winning team in the HackaBIP hackathon.

The goal of this challenge was to increase community intervention in their neighborhood, whether by developing tools for collaboration between citizens, organizations and local government, or solutions to use public and governmental data.

Micaela’s project, “Get Together”, was focused on developing a platform that citizens could use to engage with organizations and local authorities, by simply using their smartphone or computer.

She told us a bit about her experience:

“Focus on the hackathon, have very clear goals of what you want to do and work with people who you have a connection with.”

Once you have a clear picture of the project, it’s time to assign tasks to your team members.
Since you have picked them for a certain skill set, the assignments should line up. However, some tasks may overlap between teammates, so communication is the key!

Bottom line, the faster you have a clear goal, the more time you’ll have to dedicate to the project development and presentation.

Micaela, once again, was spot on:

"For executing the idea it was very important to have a multidisciplinary team. Everyone contributed with their skills. The (short) time was a challenge, but we managed to do it!”

Choosing Simplicity ✔️

As mentioned earlier, the hackathon is based on a limited time. Therefore, it is better to choose simplicity over complexity.

It’s great to generate multiple ideas while you’re in the brainstorming phase, but you should reduce them and build only the main features and components of your project.

Your focus should be on building an MVP. This applies to all aspects, including programming and designing.

Going for a long code will be much more difficult and takes a lot of time. Plus, even the slightest mistakes will cause errors in your program. In a short time period, making a complex UI or design can also be inconvenient. Choosing simplicity means opting for a shorter and readable code. Similarly, a clean, yet appealing design.

Like Odete Barros, also winner of the Social HackaCOM, stated:

“The delivery of check points was essential for us. We anticipated the order and streamlined the initial idea further.”

Don’t just follow the guidelines, dig deeper 😎

You might be compelled to jump into coding as soon as you read what the challenge is about. More often than not, this leads to teams developing projects based on erroneous assumptions.

You should start by carefully reading the hackathon rules and making sure you comply with them. Next, you should look for support. And when it comes to hackathons, they come in many shapes and sizes!

Most organizations will have mentors or specialists willing to help teams and clarify any doubts along the way. You should always refer back to them and ask for their opinion too.

Many people mistake this with taking an unfair advantage over other teams, but the truth is, the mentor will not do the work for you - they will only guide you in the right direction.

For more complex and large scale hackathons, many hosts also create webinars jam packed with useful information. If you have the chance to, you should always attend them.

Last but not least, stay tuned to any support documentation given by the host organization. It can provide the data you need to validate an idea or even insights that ultimately can give you an advantage to win a hackathon competition.

Don’t forget the PITCH! 🗣

In the end, it all comes down to the presentation. Imagine developing a great project, but nobody understands what you’ve done because it’s poorly presented? Heartbreaking 💔

This is probably the most overlooked aspect in a hackathon, but one of the most important! It can either make or break your entire hard work.

Micaela Raposo shared her experience and how important the pitch was to increase their chances of winning the hackathon:

“We had to prepare a 5 minute pitch to present our project. We prepared a very clear and appealing video presentation, with mostly graphic information and as little text as possible.


While the other projects were very good, we could engage more with the audience and juris, and explain the project in a simple, but effective way. It was very important because it represents everything we did before, and should reflect it. Good and clear communication is essential.”

As a rule of thumb, it would be best if you prepare your presentation in advance or as you go. It will help you strengthen your work and find its weak points.

Make sure to present all the features, operations, and benefits of your application. Usually, there’s a Q&A session held after the team presentation. During this, judges will ask you several questions about your presented idea or concept. They will also point out the demerits and you should know how to defend them.

Moreover, it is recommended to make your presentation short. If the pitch is only 3 minutes long, plan your presentation accordingly. You definitely don’t want to have your presentation cut halfway through because of time restraints. This stage is also highly rated because it shows your team’s thought process and the ins and outs of your project.

Take breaks, have fun! ☕🔥

Just like we said in the beginning of the article, hackathons are enduring, but also fun.

One key aspect many beginners fail to realize is to take breaks. Seriously.

Rogerio Oliveira told us it’s essential that “the team must have a leader, a scheduler and even some pauses for water!”

Drink plenty of water, get your daily dose of Vitamin D and don’t work until exhaustion. It may seem counterintuitive, but the quality of your work will stand out.

*More productivity, more focus and less hours half-awake writing code can go a long way 😉 *

Most of all, have fun!

Get to know your teammates, whether they’re from the same school or live in a totally different continent. Learn from each other. Get to know the host organization better and network with them. You might open a window of opportunity for yourself in the future.

Bonus Tip 💯

We know useful, valuable information is like pure gold. And who better to give some extra advice to beginners other than our experienced hackathon winners?

Here are their thoughts for those starting their first ever hackathon:

“My advice would be for you to focus 100% on the Hackaton, have very clear goals of what you want to do and work with people who you have a connection with, even if you don't know each other and have incompatible schedules! Transmit all you have been doing on a structured, clear and appealing way 🙂” - Micaela Raposo 

“Go for it! Follow the rules, and when you have any doubts or questions, ask others, reread the rules and find your path!” - Rogerio Oliveira

That’s a wrap! 🍬

As the old saying goes, “the value of an idea lies in the use of it”.

To win a hackathon you have to find a good team, set a clear goal, create a simple but effective presentation and take advantage of all that’s given to you.

Combine all of these secret sauces and you will notice a drastic change in your final project.

This is the key to WIN more hackathons in the long run.

Also, if you’re looking to participate in a hackathon, head over to our challenges page and join our community of 50,000 innovators 🔥

4 Amazing company hackathon examples to get you inspired

carlosmendes-taikai — Tue, 09 Nov 2021 12:26:15 +0000

Hackathons are a great way of driving open innovation - their goal is to find solutions for existing problems, develop new products and services, and accelerate corporations beyond what they could do indoors.

Don’t get us wrong.

In-company or internal hackathons are also a great way to drive your business forward, but by launching an open innovation hackathon, you can obtain results from people all over the world, from different backgrounds, perspectives and fields of expertise.

Moreover, sometimes the problem is not just to develop new ideas, but to let go of old habits.

Habits are comfortable. We tend to like confort.

But they also lead us to a funnel vision and make breakthroughs harder.

At TAIKAI, we consider ourselves lucky - we work on a daily basis with incredible companies from all over the planet, looking to put their businesses in the forefront of innovation.

What makes a hackathon great?

You don’t need to be a silicon valley company to have people committed and ready to find solutions for you.

What you need instead is to make sure your hackathon is well-thought, thoroughly prepared, and aligned with the community.

Quick note: We're working on a complete guide to prepare a hackathon. Subscribe to our newsletter and we'll notify you when it's available!

Hence, we’ve compiled four of the best open innovation examples hosted here at TAIKAI - an all-in-one hackathon platform to host and manage your challenge.

We hand-picked these examples not just based on their results, but the entire process that went behind organizing and preparing the event.

In order to come up with this list, we’ve considered the following criterias:

Resources provided by organizations 
Challenges quality 
Community alignment 
Prizes

Without further ado, here are the best company hackathon examples and ideas:

Tickethon by Wiener Linien

145 participants 
45 projects delivered 
20,000€ in prizes + extra perks

Wiener Linien - Vienna’s public transport operator - is responsible for roughly 180 underground, tram and bus lines.

To put it in perspective, on average, there’s about 2.6 million passengers using the Wiener Linien network every single day. Not only that, but their public transport vehicles cover a distance of 214,000 kilometres - which is about the same distance as orbiting the earth 5 times! Because public transportation in Vienna uses a gateless ticketing system, they have inspectors inside the vehicles or outside the stations to validate passengers' tickets.

This, in turn, takes time.

Inspectors try to validate tickets as fast as they can, but there’s always a chance of long waiting lines and overcrowding, depending on the number of passengers at any given period. To make things harder, passengers can use paper or digital tickets, through their WienMobil app.

Wiener Linien conducted research, prior to the hackathon, and found out that there’s been a growth in the use of digital tickets.

While this might seem good at first glance, it actually wasn’t. It took passengers up to 10 times longer to validate the in-app ticket.

The reason?

It all comes down to the steps it takes. Commuters have to find their phone, unlock it, find the WienMobil app, open it, find the tickets tab, and then show the ticket. On the contrary, physical tickets were easier to present because it required a lot less steps - passengers had it in hand, in a pocket, or in a wallet most of the time, and just had to show it to the inspector.

The goal 🎯

Their goal for this hackathon was not to delete the WienMobil app and go back to full paper tickets, but instead, to find solutions to improve and accelerate the digital ticket validation process.

In its core, the challenge was to create a prototype to validate tickets as fast as possible, starting after the passenger located their phone.

The winning project would be the one that could achieve 3 goals: solve the problem, ensure a smooth operation, and improve the passengers' experience.

Main takeaways ✔️

Power to the people ✊

Using hackathons as an open innovation challenge can be the answer to overcome many problems. Instead of outsourcing or trying to figure it out in-company, Wiener Linien used the power of the community to aid them.

And the community showed up! With almost 150 participants and 45 completed projects, it goes to show that the power of hackathons are enormous.

This open hackathon wasn’t meant to reinvent the wheel, either. Instead, the community understood the power and value it provided, knowing they could help millions of people in their daily commute by optimizing a simple process.

Conduct your research 📊

Collecting data has always been important, and more so in today’s digital world. Once you have real, palpable data, you can really understand the scope and dimension of the problem at hand. Knowing that validating digital tickets was taking 10x longer than paper tickets, is a better support data than just realizing it was taking more time overall.

Small steps go a long way 👣

As you can see with this example, innovation comes in different sizes and shapes. Something so ordinary, such as showing a ticket to an inspector, can be a costly and inefficient process for the company behind it and its users. Innovation lies everywhere, and every step of the way.

Data Challenge by Landing.jobs

142 participants 
14 projects delivered 
1,750€ in prizes + social tokens

Landing.jobs is a job marketplace that connects companies with tech professionals, such as software engineers, data scientists, and product managers.

Every year, they research and survey the portuguese tech community and launch their Tech Careers Report: an in-depth report that analyses salaries, schedules, benefits, motivations and other important data in the portuguese tech industry.

The goal 🎯

The goal for this open innovation hackathon was to improve the Tech Careers Report, by analyzing the raw data and developing ways to improve the quality of the insights.

Main takeaways ✔️

From the community, to the community 🤝

Landing.jobs leveraged their biggest asset - the community - in their favor. The TCR is made for them. By having a chance to build on top of it, data experts were able to contribute positively to a better analysis that ultimately, can help the community make better and more informed decisions.

Niche down when you have to 🎟

Even though Landing.jobs has a massive community in the computer science field, they clearly knew the best participants would be the ones interested in data science, specifically. They allowed anyone from the community to join and participate, but the target was clear. Also, who would have more interest in developing a data report other than data geeks?! 😄

Building the Future by Microsoft

101 participants
9 projects delivered
5,000€ in prizes

The tech giant Microsoft returned to hackathons in 2021 and brought us the “Building the future Hackahton”.

After a tough year 2020, this hackathon was meant to drive inspiration and innovative ideas to push the boundaries of technology.

In more practical ways, the challenge of this open hackathon was to come up with solutions on electric mobility, and power a more environmental friendly world 🌎

The goal 🎯

Microsoft challenged participants with not just one, but five different innovation categories, ranging from turning parked cars into sources of revenue for owners, designing infrastructure for shared electric mobility vehicles, to even using blockchain technology for mobility applications.

Main takeaways ✔️

Focus in one category of your business 💡

If your organization is involved in a variety of industries, it may be tempting to organize a hackathon to cover all of them. While this may result in more registrations, the truth is if the themes are too broad, initiatives can become scattered or overly general.

In turn, you might end up with a lot of projects or solutions for diverse segments, but only a few within each category.

Microsoft, a technological business with a wide range of products and services, opted to focus solely on the subject of electric mobility in this open innovation example.

Find the right partnership 🤝

Microsoft partnered with Galp - a portuguese multinational energy corporation, and gowithflow, a startup working towards sustainable mobility. These hackathon partnerships with relevant companies are fantastic. They strengthen the perception of authority and quality of the hackathon, and also provide support during the event planning and mentoring stages.

Social HackaCOM by Instituto GRPCOM

833 participants 
36 projects delivered 
Prizes comprised of over 1500€ in products (tech gear, mentorships & memberships)

Social HackaCOM is an innovation and communication marathon. They focused on digitally connecting academics and professionals with a transformative talent potential, who want to work with purpose and achieve a positive social impact. The Brazilian host, Instituto GRPCOM, focuses on establishing projects that adhere to the group's ethical beliefs and corporate social responsibility principles.

The goal 🎯

This innovation hackathon was open to participants from different fields of expertise, ranging from communications, digital marketing, web design and many others. It consisted of four challenges: performance & optimization based solutions, communication strategies, resource management and remote activities.

Main takeaways ✔️

Co-hosts can go a long way 🔥

Instituto GRPCOM had 7 different co-hosts for this hackathon! Having this many companies promoting the event is bound to bring you some incredible results when it comes to the number of innovators that participate in the challenge.

And they did not disappoint.

With over 800 participants, this is one of the biggest challenges we’ve hosted to date! Also, it was an open innovation challenge, but exclusive to Brazilian residents, which makes this milestone even greater.

Everybody’s welcomed 🫂

While in other hackathons niching down was a great option, it’s not always necessary or adequate.

For this challenge, it made sense to promote it to a broader audience given the context and challenge characteristics. You should always set clear expectations and goals you want to achieve with a hackathon, so that you can later determine what type of participants you want to target.

Now, it’s up to you 🚀

These were only some of the best open innovation examples we’ve hosted here at TAIKAI. The variety of challenges, the scope of the problems and solutions is something quite fascinating to look at when you put them together. From big tech corporations like Microsoft to local companies like Wiener Linien, there’s room for innovation in every industry and every size.

Hopefully, these four hackathon ideas and examples provided you with valuable insights to host your next (or first) hackathon.

TAIKAI is a virtual hackathon platform that makes an online hackathon event much easier to host. If you’re looking for a new way to drive innovation, feel free to reach out to us.

We’re always here to help :)

How Taboola benefited from a company hackathon - 147 ideas in 20 days

carlosmendes-taikai — Thu, 21 Oct 2021 13:33:43 +0000

Online hackathons are a great way of generating ideas and fostering innovation.

There’s one particular type of hackathon that’s often overlooked, but that can obtain incredible results: we’re talking about online company hackathons.

These types of challenges provide incredible opportunities for businesses because they are brewed in-company.

While it’s great to generate solutions from an outsider’s perspective, the truth is, employees have a better understanding of the immediate challenges the business faces: after all, they are the core of the company.

Paired with colleagues from different departments (and sometimes different regions, countries, and settings), your workforce is able to come together, craft solutions & generate ideas, services and products, that most of the time can be quickly applied into the business.

Case Study Overview 📖

Today we want to share with you the case study of Taboola - a major technology company that used and benefited from an internal hackathon using TAIKAI’s platform.

By the end of this case study, we hope you can understand the value of hosting an online internal hackathon and how it can help your own company.

Taboola - Who are they?

First, a little background about Taboola.

Taboola is a digital ad company based in New York City. They run a content recommendation platform that enables companies to advertise through Taboola.

Taboola then shares the content through their network of publishers, which includes MSN, Business Insider, Bloomberg, and many other media platforms and blogs.

It was founded in 2007 by Adam Singolda, and it’s currently home to more than 1400 employees.

In 2020, they reported a whopping $1.2 billion in revenue, with a gross profit of over $300 million. Just recently, at the end of June 2021, they began publicly trading in Nasdaq -so it’s pretty safe to say we’re talking about a giant in the tech world.

Taboola’s goal 🎯

Their goal was crystal clear - bring diverse groups of Taboolars together to create and present innovative ideas on how to grow and improve the company.

Taboola knew and wanted to take advantage of one of their biggest strengths: the breadth and diversity of their employee’s experience.

Meet the Innovation Sprint Hackathon

Taboola understood the power of a company hackathon to generate ideas in such a short period of time, to bring employees together, and to manage everything efficiently.

With that in mind, they designed the Innovation Sprint hackathon.

Taboola gave the participants the opportunity to choose from a set of challenges, according to their preferences and ideas.

They also made it very clear that teams had to be made up of 3 to 6 Taboolars from any part of the company (e.g. Sales Org, R&D, Marketing, PS, TI, etc.), and recommend forming teams that included a wide range of skill sets.

This was very clever from Taboola because it forced employees to co-op with colleagues from different departments.

There were two main deliverables:

A one-page business plan, highlighting the problem, the scope, the solution, and the evidence supporting it.

And a 90-second pitch, showcasing the opportunity addressed, the solution, how it would work and what would be required to pursue the project further if it were to be implemented.

While this simplistic approach might not be feasible in every online hackathon, it’s a great way to compel beginners and make them feel less intimidated by the challenge.

Last but not least, they provided clear judging criteria based on innovation, practicality, pitch quality, link to company goals, and going beyond expectations.

The results... 🔢

Were nothing short of a-ma-zing! 🤯

Taboola was able to gather 799 participants from different areas of the company in just 20 days!

Those employees formed teams that would eventually lead to 147 delivered projects by the end of the Innovation Sprint hackathon.

While the numbers speak for themselves, we’d like to highlight something even greater - the ease of mobilizing a large number of participants, in such a short amount of time, using our platform.

We provide an all-in-one solution for companies - even as big as Taboola - to quickly manage an event that would otherwise take a lot more effort, planning, and money to implement.

If you’ve never considered hosting an internal hackathon, this is your chance to do so.

Here are some of the key benefits:

Fast prototyping of ideas and services

By managing everything under one platform you simplify the process of generating ideas, services and products, and fostering innovation in your business.

Integrating and aligning teams

By doing a quick search on Taboola’s social media, you’ll find out they have employees in Israel, United States, India, Brazil, Thailand, and all over Europe, just to name a few.

With a team of this magnitude and so spread out around the world, aligning teams can be a serious challenge - however - that’s easily fixed with our platform.

Connect the teams with the company vision for the future

By hosting an online internal hackathon and laying out the foundational structure and goals, Taboola was able to connect teams with the company’s vision for the future with ease.

Still not sure if we’re the best platform for you to manage your hackathon or open innovation challenge? Our team is here for you!