A hackathon is an event where participants come together to collaborate, innovate, and create something amazing within a limited timeframe. It's a great opportunity for individuals with diverse skills and backgrounds to join forces, share knowledge, explore novel ideas and work on projects that push the boundaries of technology and creativity.

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Hackathon at our place

At Annevo, we’ve been doing a few hackathons over the years, and our most recent one took place in January. To plan and execute the hackathon in the best way possible, we had a hackathon-committee responsible for the hack, and the result was a weekend filled with code, brunches, drinks, competitions, a big family-style dinner and after-hack party.

The theme of the hackathon, “Games and entertainment”, was decided on forehand by the hackathon-committee, and plenty of fun ideas were initiated and tested over the weekend. The hackathon-committee also divided the participants in three teams of talented individuals, fueled by their passion for problem-solving and their desire to bring new ideas to life.

The atmosphere was electric, with intense brainstorming, coding marathons, and late-night discussions (between our family-style dinner, human benchmarking competition, and some beer pong sessions). During the hackathon, the participants had the chance to explore new technologies, experiment with new tools, and learn from one another.

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Dividing into teams

Upon registration, all participants could share what tech stack and tools they wanted to learn more about, and were then placed into a group where they had the chance to try out their preferred skills. The whole idea with the Hackathon was to create an environment where innovation thrived and ideas could flourish, and create an opportunity for the participants to try out some new skills while having a great time together. It wasn't really about any results; it was about the journey and having fun along the way, there’s simply no need to develop a groundbreaking product in 24 hours. The creative processes of ideation, experimentation, and iteration where as valuable as the outcomes. But with that said, the outcomes were quite remarkable!

How the team operated

Two of the teams designed and developed different game scoreboards. The third team planned to create an AR Annevo bot, which was supposed to hide in the Annevo office and make a funny sound that intensified when getting closer to it. When found, you should be able to ask questions about Annevo. The group realized that 24 hours wasn't quite enough for them to delve into the massive topic of AR, but they managed to create the Annevo bot with the AI generator Poe among other sources.

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The theme of the Hackathon revolved around entertainment, presenting a wide array of potential directions for exploration. One of the team's objective was to devise a solution suitable for internal usage at Annevo while adhering to the constraints of time and resources. After careful consideration, it was decided that creating a leaderboard integrated with the Annevo HR system would be optimal, enabling the team to harness the profile data of all Annevo employees.

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Inspiration for the project originated from the diverse array of events and competitions regularly hosted at Annevo. The concept of a leaderboard took shape, heavily influenced by recurring activities such as weekly quizzes, as well as engaging events like ping pong and FIFA tournaments. Recognizing the enjoyment and potential for engagement, the team envisioned tracking and presenting these results across various branches and competitions.

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Collaboration within the team was multifaceted, spanning across design, front-end, and back-end development domains. The strategy involved the careful selection of technologies, offering opportunities for team members to assume roles aligned with their interests.

Regarding future endeavors, the team currently lacks immediate plans for private continuation. However, they perceive this project as an excellent opportunity for handover to individuals in transitional phases or interns seeking to further its development. The team believes it holds potential for expansion and refinement under the guidance of someone with the bandwidth and enthusiasm to take it to the next level.