Rush, urge or breakthrough? We tell the whole truth about the country's largest hackathon
What for?
Any hackathon known in a wide circle of narrow specialists usually has a specific and openly stated goal. You must admit that no one will spend tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars on promotion, renting a huge room and freshly squeezed carrot juices just for fun. Therefore, on their motley and smartphone-adapted landing pages, the organizers always write in beautiful and bold letters why this is necessary.
The HackPrinceton page says the event will bring together “the best developers and designers from across the country to create stunning sowtware and hardware projects.” No less popular in the USA, the HackDavis project defines its mission as “hack for social good”, that is, to do projects for the public good. There are more specialized options. The FlytCode Hackathon asks participants to engage in innovative algorithms for automating drone flight missions. Surely there are hackathons that are designed to help people fight migraines or finally unfasten teens from their smartphones.
Meanwhile, in Russia, in general, everything is always always either very easy, fun and just like that, or seriously in the most extreme degree. But seriously doesn't mean boring at all. We tell what will be the largest hackathon in the country.
The “Digital Breakthrough” hackathon, which ANO “Russia is a country of opportunities” is engaged in - large-scale, ambitious and about big and important tasks. His mission is to find talents hidden in indecision, but burning with enthusiasm, to put together teams from them and to invite the best of them to engage in projects that, a little bit, will forever change the technological landscape of the country.
The phrase “digital breakthrough” sounds very out of place here. After all, “figure” is not only a buzzword from the speeches of officials, but also an “umbrella” term for a variety of technologies. Just some 7-10 years ago, all of our travel cards, movie tickets, and reception windows in clinics were completely analogous. Now everywhere the ball is ruled by the “figure”. Perhaps there are more than a dozen of the most diverse aspects of our lives that can be digitalized beyond recognition. The goals of such digitalization can be very different - increasing comfort and security, accelerating trivial social algorithms, saving time, moral resources and even your grandmother's pension.
Of course, the state is doing this already, spending billions of rubles on the development and implementation of national programs. Thousands of specialists are working on the complete “digitalization” of the process of obtaining medical services, the education sector has its own projects, and a large-scale project is being implemented to implement the Safe City hardware and software systems. But, as mentioned above, our daily life is so multifaceted that there is and will always be space for improvement. Why not take part in this and bring real benefits to the country?
For whom?
There are no and there can be no restrictions. According to project leader Oleg Mansurov, “Digital Breakthrough” is not about formalities. There are no strict requirements that limit the professional level of participants. However, the organizers hope that this level will be higher than the base.
“The presence of specialized education is also not required. Rather, on the contrary, it is assumed that among the participants there will be those who at different times completed courses, as well as those who focused solely on self-education. And the latter will be clearly a lot. ”
A well-known fact: to win a hackathon it is not enough to be able to program well, draw beautiful icons or own a perfect Gantt chart. Everything is needed at once. Therefore, interdisciplinary teams will be formed from the selected Digital Breakthrough participants. Perhaps its most effective composition is several programmers, one designer (who is guaranteed not to argue with another designer) and a manager with advanced marketing skills.
How?
If now it has become clearer to you why all this is necessary, then it's time to tell how this will all happen. The hackathon formula is this: 50-40-48. This means that after selection, registered participants will be offered to undergo online testing on 50 possible topics, then qualifying hackathons will be held immediately in 40 regions of the country, and finally, the strongest will meet at the grand final hackathon lasting 48 hours.
In order not to be late for the digitalization train, which is rapidly gaining cruising speed, it’s worth postponing facebook and TV shows right now and just submit an application on the digital breakthrough website . This is an absolutely painless and quick procedure that can have consequences - an invitation to the qualifying hackathon in your city.
Between the application and the visit to the regional hackathon there is the best friend-or-foe recognition system - an extensive test of declared skills. Again we give the floor to Oleg:
“Fifty skills will be tested - a number of programming languages, a number of theoretical aspects of creating information systems, software design, project management, product management, financial and business analysis, and some others. As you can see - a very diverse range. ”
And who are the judges?
The level of hackathon is determined not only by the scale of the declared topics and the size of the budget. The composition of the expert council is of great importance. And here “Digital Breakthrough” sets the bar high. The expert council includes representatives of Mail.ru, Rostelecom, Rosatom, MegaFon and other companies. The final requirements for the testing phase and tasks for the hackathons themselves are developed in close partnership with leading educational institutions of Russia, such as ITMO, MIPT, MSTU. Bauman.
Ideas are worthless without decent implementation. It's time to start doing!
